The Weekly Standard’s blog reported 20 minutes ago, with not a single bit of wiggle room, that Obama has chosen Biden. I just did a quick check around a bunch of other sites, and nobody else has it. Assuming the Standard is right, they get the credit for the scoop. I think it is a bold choice by Obama. A bit risky because Biden is a loose cannon, but also with a very big upside because Biden is a very effective, personable politician with lots of knowledge. Also, as insufferable as he sometimes is, there are indeed times when Biden has shown the ability to rise above mere politics and show a bit of statesmanship. I do think that at heart he is a patriot. He’s a cheap-shot politician at times, and a supreme egotist, but he also has a better side that rarely but definitely occasionally shows itself. I would feel better about him as president, frankly, than about Obama, or for that matter better about him than about anybody else who ran for the Demo nomination this year. That’s faint praise, but it is something. And if I as a conservative movement guy can see that, I bet that many other Americans will get the same impression. And that makes him a potentially effective campaigner.