From the Archives…

In all seriousness, I thought Senator Joe Biden won the Democratic presidential debate the other night. While I disagreed with his ideas, he seemed infinitely more presidential--in terms of being able to communicate comfortably and at least sound as if he knew what he was talking about--than any of the others. And he did get the sound bite of the evening:

So maybe he does have a chance after all. And honestly, after reading some recent news accounts, if he does pull it off, I wonder if he shouldn't consider picking Kansas Senator (and Republican presidential candidate) Sam Brownback as his running mate. Here's The Hill:

Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) said yesterday that the Bush administration and Republicans are not doing enough politically in Iraq and that he and fellow presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) have been in talks about introducing a bill that would call for partitioning Iraq into three states.

And from ABC News:

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., a Republican presidential candidate, said Wednesday that he is talking with Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., a Senate colleague who is also running for president, about the possibility of teaming up to offer bipartisan legislation that would pursue a "three-state/one-country" solution for Iraq.

"You need a political as well as a military solution for Iraq," said Brownback, who believes that the Bush administration is pursuing a strategy in Iraq that is "dominated by the military and Maliki," Iraq's prime minister.

Biden originally offered his "unity through autonomy" idea for Iraq's Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds in a May 1, 2006, op-ed in The New York Times, which he co-wrote with Leslie Gelb of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Brownback made his comments in Washington, D.C., during a breakfast meeting with reporters sponsored by The Christian Science Monitor.

"Sen. Biden is obviously open to discussions with anyone about how to move Iraq toward a political solution that gets our troops home and leaves behind a stable Iraq," Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander told ABC News while noting that she was not familiar with any particular discussion between the two senators.

Brownback, who opposed the recent troop surge in Iraq but is against setting a specific timetable for withdrawal, said he has sent Biden a draft of what he would like the legislation to look like.

He would ideally like to offer it even before President Bush makes good on his promise to veto a war funding bill containing a timetable for U.S. troop withdrawal.

The Kansas Republican cautioned, however, that his discussions with Biden are still preliminary and no deal has been reached.

Of course, I'm kidding about a Biden-Brownback ticket. But I do think that those who claim the gentleman from Kansas is such a conservative rock star (see our previous posts on the silliness of the Conservative Messiah Watch) ought to be a little more careful given that his views on the most pressing issue of our time--the war against jihadists who want to kill us--more closely resemble those of a Democratic also-ran than anyone else's.

For a different approach, see Governor Romney's Yeshiva University speech.