Repeat After Me

This isn't hard.

If you're a Democratic candidate for president, you will be asked about the other Democratic candidates for president. You will be asked whether or not each of them would make a good president. You will be asked whether you think each of them is qualified to be president.

These are easy questions to answer in 2007, because in 2007 the current president is George W. Bush. And that's all you need to say.

"I'm sure that [Clinton/Obama/Edwards/Gore/Richardson/Biden/Dodd/Kucinich/Vilsack/Other] would be a better president than the one we have now."

And:

"Certainly, [Clinton/Obama/Edwards/Gore/Richardson/Biden/Dodd/Kucinich/Vilsack/Other] is more qualified than George W. Bush was when he took office."

Look, no one is going to want to vote for you for president based on your ability to point out the shortcomings of your primary opponents. Eventually, of course, you will need to criticize their positions where they differ from yours, and to point out why you are more qualified, but those eventual criticisms will carry more weight if you don't come out swinging, slinging and flinging at the first opportunity, and if you've demonstrated a capacity for generosity and magnanimity.

These answers also turn the focus back to your greatest strength, and the greatest strength of every Democratic candidate in this election: You're not George W. Bush. If you win this primary contest, you will want to hang Bush around the neck of your eventual Republican opponent, so why not get started on that now?

And these answers clearly imply that you are confident that you would be a better president than George W. Bush, and that you are more qualified than he was when he was given the office. That confidence comes across as presidential.

Plus, they keep you from coming across as dodgy, as Sen. Hillary Clinton seemed when she was asked these questions by Matt Lauer on the Today Show:

LAUER: Is [Sen. Barack Obama] completely qualified to be commander in chief, in your opinion?

CLINTON: You know, Matt, we're going to have a really vigorous debate, I think on both sides, with both parties in this primary season, and the voters will make these decisions. That's what's so great about …

LAUER: But do you think he's qualified? I mean he's a fellow Democrat, would you be comfortable with him in the White House?

CLINTON: I'm going to let all of those decisions be sorted out by voters …

Wrong answer. If you could call that an answer. Clinton had just spent the first four minutes of the interview criticizing Bush's mishandling of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. She could have easily hammered home those points by simply noting that if anyone was completely unqualified "to be commander in chief" it was the man currently failing at that job. Lauer's final question also was a hanging curveball that she should have hit out of the park, "I would be infinitely more comfortable with Sen. Obama in the White House than with the current occupant, and we would all be much better off."

But Clinton's non-answer at least demonstrated that she knew there was a hook under the bait she was being offered. Sen. Joe Biden swallowed that hook, jumping at the chance to take a shot at the opponents that only he imagines he can defeat. The New York Observer appropriately titled its interview with him, "Biden Unbound: Lays into Clinton, Obama, Edwards."

"I don't think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about," Biden said of one opponent, which merely came across as nasty and weirdly envious. His comments about Obama came across as nasty, weirdly envious and racist:

Mr. Biden is equally skeptical — albeit in a slightly more backhanded way — about Mr. Obama. “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American, who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy,” he said. “I mean, that’s a storybook, man.”

I've inserted a comma the Observer left out, clarifying (as the audio seems to confirm) that "who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" is a non-restrictive relative clause. So, no, I don't think Biden was suggesting that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was dim, dirty and ugly, even though he clearly was suggesting that Jackson — the recipient of the first primary vote I ever cast — was not mainstream.

But there's still that choice of the word "articulate," the condescendingly dismissive code-word of choice for white people who harbor the notion that it's somehow impressive whenever someone darker than they are is able to speak clearly. (In the case of Barack Obama, of course, the word is not only condescending, but inaccurate. He's not merely "articulate." He is, at the very least, eloquent.)

After sticking his foot in his mouth and then shooting himself in the foot, Biden likely spent most of yesterday wishing he had come up with a better answer when asked to comment on his Democratic rivals. He doesn't need to work so hard at this. This isn't hard.

Repeat after me: