Last night on MSNBC's Countdown the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza joined Keith Olbermann to analyze Barack Obama's choice of running mate. Cillizza, who wrote a companion post today titled, "The Case for Joe Biden," argues that the process of elimination has left Joe Biden as the hottest candidate (and possibly the only candidate) left in the pool. Here's a snippet from Biden's comments about McCain during a conference call last month: "He doesn't get it. The mere fact that you would have someone compare the circumstances now, in the past, or in the future, of Iraq to the ending of World War II and the ending of the Korean war absolutely demonstrates a total fundamental lack of understanding of what the problems America faces."For similar reasons, Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight.com sees Wesley Clark as Obama's best choice. "Joe Biden has a lot of credibility on foreign policy," he writes, "but the aesthetics of what he could do on the stump and in interviews aren't really a match for those of a bona fide, ex-General. Biden might leave Obama better equipped to defend news cycles in which something like the South Ossetia conflict is the central topic; Clark might actually be able to win them."
That quote (and others like it) suggest Biden can -- and would -- go toe to toe with McCain (and whoever the Arizona Senator chooses as his running mate) over conflicts across the world, relationships with foreign leaders and vision for the future of the country.
One other potential foreign policy benefit to Obama in picking Biden. The Delaware senator has known McCain for the better part of three decades, meaning that he knows ever nook and cranny, every nuance of the positions that the Arizona Senator has taken over that time. That means the Obama campaign can call McCain on any sort of foreign policy flip flop by using Biden, a credible messenger on the issues.

ALBANY, N.Y. -Vice President Joe Biden is helping out a Democratic congressional candidate in the final hours of an upstate New York campaign that has become a referendum on the Republican Party....
Politics at play as Obama helps anemic Democrats By PHILIP ELLIOTT , AP posted: 19 MINUTES AGO comments: 4 Text Size A A A ...

