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Obama-biden '08

A quick take on the Biden news, with more to come tomorrow:

--When I was touting Sam Nunn's credentials people kept telling me that Obama a) is confident enough not to feel he needs "experience" balancing the ticket and b) understands that doing so would only draw attention to his own inexperience. So much for that. I think Obama made the smart call on that score.

--As I noted a few days ago, however, Biden is not just about foreign policy. He can be great on domestic affairs, with a (Bill) Clintonian knack for making dry policy come alive in human terms. 

--Biden calls McCain a "personal and close friend," often referring to him as "John" in interviews, which could have interesting and unpredictable consequences for the back-and-forth between the campaigns.

--So much for Obama's supporters being "the first to know"! Sounds like that was Liz Sidoti and Nedra Pickler. Will be interesting to see if there's any netroots backlash. [Update: Politico says it was CNN's John King. More: Kos was a wee premature in gloating last night that "old media is getting left out in the cold."]

--And my favorite Joe Biden fact: As a boy, this man perhaps most famous for his inability to stop talking--years ago TNR ran an entire one-page "article" that consisted of a single, rambling Biden statement at a committee hearing--had a severe stutter, which is the one thing that casts his blabbing in a more sympathetic light.

Update: McCain statement just in--the first of a great many along these lines to come:

"There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama's lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama's poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing -- that Barack Obama is not ready to be President."

--Michael Crowley