Regarding Biden and his potential vote for the atrocious bankruptcy bill, Jon Chait writes:
The trouble here is that the relationship each Democrat has with his home-state business interests is the relationship every Republican has with every business interest. The bankruptcy bill enjoys unanimous GOP support in the Senate. It's a familiar pattern: Noxious laws enjoy support from a coalition of all the Republicans plus a rotating handful of Democrats who have ties to interested parties. Almost all the Democrats are on the side of the angels on almost every issue. But it doesn't take many Democratic defectors to give the Republicans a majority.
Just so. Worse, these little hook amendments are often inserted precisely so this or that Democratic will glom on to the porkish bit in the abhorrent whole. That's fine for some folks, Senator Ben Nelson, for instance, has gotta do what he's gotta do to keep his job. But unless Biden is caught in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, his seat is safe. In those cases, betraying morality in the service of electorally unnecessary self-interest should be roundly, and loudly, condemned. And the best way to condemn it might be by connecting it to a potential run for President...
