Barack Obama’s selection of long-time Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate was a huge political mistake.

Why?

Because Biden gives Obama almost nothing to help him in the one and only one thing they ought to be thinking about: accumulating 270 Electoral votes on November 4th.

Biden does not give them a state that they would not have already had. Thus he is like so many other recent - failed - Democrat Veep picks: Lloyd Bentsen, Geraldine Ferraro, Joe Lieberman and John Edwards. None of these selections helped their ticket gather those 270 Electoral votes - or the converse: kept their GOP opponents from getting to that magic number.

Evan Bayh would have automatically made Indiana - a traditional GOP lock - a competitive state and hurt McCain by stretching and stressing his limited campaign budget.

Mark Warner or Jim Webb would similarly vault Virginia - a longtime GOP bastion - into the undecided column.

Bill Richardson would have guaranteed New Mexico for Obama and maybe locked up Nevada and Colorado, too.

But Joe Biden’s Delaware is a solid Democratic state anyway. So - as far as the Electoral map - Biden does not do much.

The sycophants in the media - and the performance over the weekend was downright disgraceful as everyone inside the DC Beltway rushed forward to praise Biden. Where is the objectivity? Where is the balance? Where are stories about his alleged law school plagiarism as part of the 1987-1988 pattern of plagiarism? Where is a recounting of the brutal way he assaulted Judge Clarence Thomas?

No...no! Instead we are told how this life-long political blowhard and hack is the Third Coming (the Second is Obama himself). The fawning by the MSNBC Talking Heads was unbelievable!

How about some objectivity? How about the fact that, as a Catholic, he is pro-choice? Did anyone bother to mention that? No! All they said was that he is a Catholic and thus will help Obama in heavily Catholic states like Pennsylvania and Ohio. Oh, really? Do all Catholic go against Church doctrine?

Hmmmm.... How come Biden - after years of campaigning and national TV appearances - could not get even one per cent of the vote in this year’s Iowa caucuses?

How come the inside the DC Beltway media love this motor mouth so much - but the voters in Iowa didn’t buy his act one bit?

Did anyone bother to mention that?

No!

This just points out the incestuous relationship between the media and the people they cover; they trade leaks for access and puffery for access. What a disgrace they all are!

Conclusion: Biden does help flesh out the weaknesses in Obama’s (thin or nonexistent) resume. He has DC experience and foreign policy knowledge. And he will be an aggressive attack dog against Mccain and a Bush Third Term (the Obama fall campaign theme).

But he is a self-important, puffed-up liberal blow-hard who talks and talks but seems to know very little.

Obama may regret this selection, not because Biden will do badly but because someone else could have helped him get to that magic 270.