Biden is NOT running because he did have premature withdrawal

Joe Biden, doing his Mario Cuomo 2.0 Hamlet dance

Per what seems to be a serious internal leak, following rumors late last week, following a VERY deliberate leak by Biden himself to arch-Clinton hater Maureen Dowd, following Biden getting Obama's blessing, just a couple of days ago, it looked like Vice President Joe Biden was throwing his hat in the Democratic presidential ring.

And now he's not. Is that your final answer, Mr. Biden?

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, for a man who's seemed more and more ethically challenged ('I was the first Biden to be ethically challenged as a senator"), Biden used his announcement ending his stint as Mario Cuomo 2.0 to take a few more shots at Hillary Clinton. (One wonders if he leaked the full text of his announcement in advance to MoJo Dowd, so she could start warming up her poison pen again.)

Without mentioning her by name, Mr. Biden criticized Mrs. Clinton’s assertion in last week’s Democratic debate that the Republicans are her enemies. “They are our opposition; they’re not our enemies,” he said, repeating a point he has made several times in the last 48 hours. “And for the sake of the country, we have to work together.” 

Reading from a prepared text flashed on flat screens in the Rose Garden, Mr. Biden argued against the sort of hawkish interventionism Mrs. Clinton has championed in the Middle East and elsewhere. “The argument that we just have to do something when bad people do bad things isn’t good enough,” he said. “It’s not a good enough reason for American intervention and to put our sons’ and daughters’ lives on the line, put them at risk.” 

Mr. Biden seemed to chide Mrs. Clinton for distancing herself from Mr. Obama lately, as she has done on trade, Syria, Arctic drilling and other issues. “Democrats should not only defend this record and protect this record, they should run on the record,” he said.

This is, of course, laughable.

Biden, like Clinton, voted FOR the Iraq War. And, Obama just this week said he was delaying full pullout from Afghanistan of U.S. troops. And as for the Obama-inspired Kumbaya with the modern Congressional GOP? Sorry, Joe, but you and your boss are both wrong.

Biden has more "shots," also wrong, here. Money in politics? That's rich coming from Senator MBNA.

And, no, I'm still not a Hillary Clinton supporter. I do favor some degree of ethics from both politicians and political pundits, though.

Meanwhile, speaking of pundits, JoePa's announcement again illustrates their degree of suck-up-itis.

Per the "now he's not" link, both authors of the piece, Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, say:

At the same time, Mrs. Clinton’s allies prepared for what would have been a messy, grueling campaign against a rival whose greatest political calling card has been his authenticity. 

There's two ways to counter this.

First, does "authenticity" mean "gaffe-prone"? If that's the case, yeah, JoePa's got authenticity in spades.

Second, even as the reporting duo mentioned problems he might face in a campaign, they overlook his plagiarism of British Labor leader Neil Kinnock. There; I've reminded you, even if the weaselly NYT wouldn't.

As for political handicapping?

Short list says:

• Hillary Clinton is a winner on this. That said, maybe she's not as much a winner as might initially seem the case; the NYT says part of why Biden stayed out is that he couldn't claw away Clinton supporters.
• Bernie Sanders is a winner, because he's now the only "serious competitor."
• Martin O'Malley's is a potential winner. Can he make this actuality?
• Joe Biden is a potential loser. It remains to be seen if the final twisting of the knife in Clinton's back hurts his legacy.
• We the Getcha Popcorn People are losers on entertainment value. No "authenticity" at debates.