Obama-Biden '08

This morning, Barack Obama's campaign woke me up at 5am with a text message saying that Obama had selected Senator Joe Biden as his running mate. I breathed a sigh of relief, fell back asleep, and had a West Wing'esque dream.

In my dream, Obama and Biden announced that they would support gay marriage because they were not afraid of being the truly progressive party. Then I woke up.

Even if Obama-Biden will not come out for gay marriage or other "really liberal things" like abolishing the death penalty, I still think this ticket is a move in the right step for the Democratic Party.

I think for too long we have tried the safe-vanilla candidates. We picked John Kerry because he was not as crazy as Howard Dean, and picked John Edwards because he was then perceived as a more middle of the road Democrat from the South. And I will admit that I 100% had this thinking.

After seeing Obama-Bayh bumper stickers on Drudge last night, I feared we were going to follow down this path again. Although Senator Bayh seems like a great guy and a lot of conservatives did not mind him, he was not what we needed. We needed to stop playing it safe because it never actually works. And I am so tired of losing.

I won't go into all the reasons why I really like Biden right now. However, as this year's convention approaches, I will note that the most memorable speech that I heard at the 2004 convention was not Obama's famous red state/blue state speech, or Kerry's acceptance speech, or even Bill Clinton's speech. It was the speech that Senator Biden gave at College Democrats Caucus at the convention.

My Pick: Biden

Honestly, I am surprised that the VP has not leaked by now. There is a short-list, and many rumors, but no definitive answer. You would think that with a campaign so disciplined, we would be leading by more right now.

I have decided that when I wake up tomorrow, I want to see Senator Joe Biden's name in a text message. I have always liked Biden for many reasons, and David Brooks wrote a good, neatly packaged column in the NYT about why he hopes that Obama picks Biden: working class roots, honesty, loyalty, experience.

However, it was a monologue that Bill Maher gave six months ago that reminded me why we should not be afraid of Joe Biden, just because his biggest flaw (in the mind of most democrats) is that he is a "loose cannon" and prone to gaffes:

New Rule: There's more to being smart than just not misspeaking. The world is a complicated place. Sometimes it all feels like a runaway train of violence, resentment and insecurity - sort of like a family reunion at Ryan O'Neil's place. Which is why for this next election, we need to pick the smartest candidate, not the dullest one who simply never had a verbal gaffe and said a wrong word or phrase. We're a superpower, not a drinking game. It has to be about leadership, not just hitting your buzzer first and remembering to phrase your answer in the form of a question.

A couple of weeks ago, Senator Joe Biden hit the ground flopping when he described Barack Obama as articulate and clean. But if you think he's a racist, then you're not really thinking, you're just playing Gotcha. Yes, the remark was cringe-worthy - it always is when someone old and out of touch says something creepy - even a Chinaman knows that.

However, when it comes to the most important ISSUE of the day, last year, Joe Biden was out ahead on calling for an Iraq broken into three countries - and that is what's going to happen, no matter how much surging George Bush does. And I say fine, so what if Iraq gets broken up, it's a made up country anyway, there's only been an Iraq since 1932 - it's 7 years younger than Paul Newman. And the people in it hate each other so much, and are now in such a, shall we say "intense" phase of the revenge cycle, that they're only going to be able to start breathing again if they live in different countries - which they're already moving to, on their own.

So, the guy who got this right, he can't run, because we're a very sensitive people, and he said a black man was clean, and we care more about a one second verbal brain-fart than we do about who has the right answers. The guy who had the right answer on terrorism in 2004 was John Kerry - he said fighting terrorism was primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation, which doesn't sound macho in elections, but is true, he can't be in the debate either, because he's a crappy comedian. He screwed up a joke - about our troops! Hit the road jack.

Howard Dean has been a virtual Nostradamus on predicting what would happen in Iraq from the beginning. But he screamed once. He said "yee-ha" - publicly! He screamed louder than a crowd of people screaming at him, and the media acted like Grandpa just yelled out the "N" word at a ball game.

And before the war began, it was Al Gore who got it right, who spoke unequivocally about not making this bad choice, a choice that 77 Senators voted for. But during the debates of 2000, Al Gore... sighed! We can't have a sigh-er for president! That's why I think every candidate has to come out NOW, and say or do the stupidest thing they possibly can, and get it out of the way.

• Chris Dodd must tell the religious right to take their abstinence programs and go back to Hymentown.


• John Edwards must be caught hiring an illegal alien to wash his hair.


• Sam Brownback must be caught having sex with his wife that is not for procreational purposes.


• Hillary Clinton must mispronounce South Carolina "Mouth Vagina."


• Barack Obama must tell people he's, quote, "bigger than Jesus."


• Rudy Giuliani has to declare at a press conference that he's cheating on his wife, but it's ok because he's undergoing cancer treatment and he can't get an erection anyway. He did?


• John McCain must be caught with a Filipino bar girl with an Adam's apple.

The sad thing is, all of those could really work. Does John Kerry really think the troops are stupid? No, Karl Rove things you're stupid. And if a botched joke or a sigh or a brain-fart is enough to derail you from a wise choice, he's kinda right. Does this mean that Joe Biden or Howard Dean should automatically be president - of course not. But the next time something really bad happens, remember it might have something to do with our election process having turned into an episode of Survivor - not even Survivor, Showtime at the Apollo - one note that's a little off key, and the Sandman comes out with the hook.

So disqualify the smartest leaders because they may have caused you a socially awkward moment, but next time another painful disaster is visited upon us, perhaps because we weren't being led by the best and the brightest, you'll know why: because the black guy on Grey's Anatomy said "Fag!" And by the way, if we're going to choose our presidents by which one never misspeaks, how did we end up with the Chimp we have now?

I don't agree with everything Bill Maher says but this was so memorable, that I had to post it in its entirety.We'll see how it turns out tomorrow . . .

Risky Business

Today the International Olympic Committee requested an investigation of the Chinese gymnasts' ages. For those living under a rock, there are rumors that half of the Chinese gymnastics team is younger than sixteen, the the qualifying age for Olympic gymnastics. Allegedly, Chinese officials may have changed the girls' passports to render them old enough to compete.

While I was not one of those people who was convinced that the Chinese gymnasts were underage because they looked younger (because Asian people don't age and I could pass for 20 if not younger), I was skeptical about the ages when I heard that Chinese news and websites reported last year that one of the gymnasts was born in 1994, and suddenly those websites have disappeared. I just never thought that there would be an actual investigation.

For those keeping track at home, disqualifying those athletes that would give us China's gold medals in the team all-around and uneven bars. I'm not trying to get my hopes up too high though.

I have to say that if these allegations are true, the Chinese officials are pretty gutsy. It's already bad enough to have individual athletes cheat; but to have officials forge government documents in such a high profile Olympic sport? That's about as dumb and risky as John Edwards having an affair while running for President.

If China's goal was to present a new image to the world, they have succeeded. Now many people think of them as a country so obsessed with image and winning that they will digitally enhance fireworks, have a girl lip-sync another girl's voice because the original singer wasn't "cute" enough, and now tamper with one of the most popular Olympic sports.

Waiting for Godot

I woke up on Monday thinking that it was the day. Then the news said it Tuesday, no wait, Wednesday. Then I brought my cell phone to the gym today thinking I was going to get a text message. And my friend had a dream this morning that Barack Obama was his roommate and was going to tell him who his Vice Presidential pick was, but then my friend woke up.

Who will be Barack Obama's running mate? And the less exciting question: Who will be John McCain's VP pick?

The funny thing is that the choices for Vice President nominees often have no or little bearing on the election, but everyone makes such a big deal out of it. The political pundits have power rankings, the news channels track every move of each potential candidate, the Obama campaign plays things up with this texting idea, and we eat it all up.

Team USA

One of the many things I love about the Olympics is the camaraderie-- athletes are so supportive of each other, especially within each nation.

It's great to see Kobe and Lebron not only come together to play on the "Redeem Team," not only hang out with each other in Beijing, but go support other American teams like the men's Relay swim team and the beach volleyball players. I laughed when Jason Lezak said that he was swimming for Kobe and Lebron; he couldn't let them down since he's a big basketball fan.

Even I feel myself cheering for swimmer Rebecca Soni, who goes to USC.

Finally, after watching the USA gynmasts give hugs and high fives with the Chinese, they reminded me not to hate the Chinese athletes either. I feel like commentators and those of us watching at home get more riled up than the competitors themselves. Probably because the athletes can appreciate each other's talent and hard work. Don't hate the player, hate the game (and the governments who may or may not have forged passports, and the judges who can't get it right).

Happy List

1. Visa Olympic commercials narrated by Morgan Freeman. I wish he would narrate my life.
2. Going to a fancy restaurant during Restaurant Week with friends. I had potato wrapped salmon on corncakes, like in Top Chef 3, so good.
3. Target and the back to school Target commercial.
4. Finding discount textbook and swapping books with friends.
5. Seeing my other friends pictures from our trip and the wedding.

I Wanna Be Like Mike (and others)

After watching Michael Phelps win eight gold medals, Dara Torres win her twelfth medal at her fifth Olympics at the age of 41, and many other inspiring swimmers, I decided to take advantage of my apartment building's Olympics size swimming pool. (I was too scared to use the pool in my Santa Barbara apartment, in fear of getting diseases).

I used to love swimming; the backstroke was always my favorite. I was always sad that we never had a pool at our house nor a community pool within walking distance of our house, but at least I got to go to swimming lessons every summer. I am not sure why I never tried out for my high school's swim team. Probably because I was intimidated by all the kids who did have pools and competed on their neighborhood's local swim team. California neighborhoods do produce some hardcore swimmers, including Anthony Ervin--an Olympic gold medalist, who went to my high school.

I swam my own 400 meter medley (no butterfly though--not coordinated enough) today. Though I was only competing (secretly) with the senior citizens who swim laps in the pool and was probably 10x slower than anyone in Beijing, I was happy.