You’re a joke. You go for some muck raking, then you hide under “It’s a Joke, lighten up!”

I’m living proof that you don’t need to be a GOP partisan to think that Biden is a bit of a clown. He is. He’s party-line, old-school, rote-repetition tedious. If you’re a centrist, you tend not be much of fan of old-school partisans like Biden.

Nick, for the sake of balance, could say something disparaging about one of the more embarassing GOP clowns? Sadly, there isn’t anyone on the GOP ticket this time, I know. But maybe make fun of Mitt Romney or Arlen Specter. Just to show you’re not, you know, an operative.

Actually the hair plug joke was not what I was trying to criticize, and maybe I should have been clearer, and less dismissive. It’s actually the “record of spweing knee-jerk liberal pablum that makes him unfit to govern” that I was responding to.

The thing I like about donklephant is that it is a place where people can disagree on substance without getting into petty name-calling and character assaults, and where people on both sides take each other seriously.

Now maybe it’s my own knee-jerk reaction to your fox news background, but all I’ve seen from you over the past few days seems to me to be dismissive of those who lean left, and praising mccain without substance. I’m not complaining that you have a right-leaning outlook (I usually appreciate ASC’s posts), but that I kind of expect a more respectful tone since you’re a contributor.

It’s not that people don’t have a sense of humor, it’s that you are taking Sen. Biden’s charitable donations as a means of making a generalized attack on his character, without either comparing his donations (given his reported income) to that of Sen. McCain, Gov. Palin or even Sen. Obama. What’s more, you fail in this post to articulate why this is relevant at all, given the problems we face, and the experience the senator has. I mean, he’s warned us about many problems, particularly in the international arena (Pakistan, Russia-Georgia) way before anyone else focused on them.

Additionally, I saw some joke about him taking public transportation, but Amtrak, particularly in the East Coast is far more expensive than elsewhere in the country, since (as I understand it) it is the systems cash cow. I mean, a cursory view of fares on the Amtrak website shows that a daily round trip fare (and the cheapest) from Wilmington to DC and back is $118.00. Multiply that by 7 and that totals to $826.00 a week, or almost $47,000 a year. That’s the cheapest fare. If he however travels business class, you could see that figure go up by at least another $5,000 or more.

My point is, taking your own formula of looking at just one indicator and making a broad based assumption based on that one indicator that given the fact that Amtrak’s east coast routes subsidize the rest of the nation, Sen. Biden actually contributes about $50,000 a year to that effort. Seen another way, that means that this public servant contributes about 1/6 of his overall public servant salary to subsidizing the national railway every year and has done so, for the last 30 yrs.

I don’t think that’s an accurate reflection of what Sen. Biden has done, much like I don’t think your numbers are, but my point is, looking at snippets of data, allows you to make partisan arguments one way or the other.

Finally, you also have to look at the fact that Sen. Biden seems content with his government salary, and has not sought to enrich himself during his 30 yrs career in the senate. Given how many of our senators, and congressmen and women go there with just such a purpose, maybe his lack of greed can also count as a public service. In other words, you can argue he’s been far more interested in serving the people of his state, than in enriching himself beyond the comfort that his job and salary provide him.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTZiY2EyNjllZmI3MjBiODdiM2ViNjc5ZmYxNjI1Zjg=

offered a little balance.

My favorite part is going to be where Nick starts complaining that Joe is a plagerizer….that will be rich.

That said, Nick should be permitted to post whatever he wants, though he does kind of miss the starting from the center idea behind the site. After 8 years of Bush polarizing politics, it’s pretty clear that there is no longer any real center. We have left, right and disinterested.

Nick Ragone Says: “It’s not his failure to donate to charity that makes him unfit to govern. It’s his 35 year record of spweing [sic] knee-jerk liberal pablum that makes him unfit to govern. That, and his awful hair plugs. That should disqualify him from holding office, period.”

Is this really donklephant material?

Those who want to compare “how much”, and use the results as some sort of an “I’m better than you” thing, are Entirely Missing The Point.

Personally, I think the VP debate is going to be hiLARious. Absolute opposite personalities, nearly opposite on the Experience-o-meter. There might even be a gender difference in there as well. While this election is a joke, it’s entertaining. And apparently that’s all America cares about. /cynicism_off.

As Abraham Lincoln once stated, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.”

Given Fact: Joe Biden gives less to charity than the average American.
Therefore: Joe Biden is unfit to govern.

I don’t think Nick is saying that. Biden could obviously spare more change, but he hasn’t. However, to this point…

This doesn’t include his or his wife’s donated time, each of which is substantial.

There’s more than one way to be charitable.

Agreed.