democratic primary field, the new york times reports that the former vice president stumbles to come up with a clear answer as to why he is running for president. out on the campaign trial, biden has talked about his lack of motivation to be the next commander in chief. i think at this moment in time i m the most qualified person to do it. could i die happily having not heard hail to chief play for me? yeah, i could. that s why i m running. the irony is the less ionger i around, the less that appeals to me. biden s friends tell the times that he decided to run because he could not live with himself if he didn t do something. when asked if he would be running if a more conventional republican were running, biden replied, i m not quite sure to be honest with you. washington post greg sergeant has a new piece entitled pull it together, joe . as you may have heard, speaking
july, early august, the process had grown slow on making a decision on afghanistan. kelly as longtime member of the marine corps, he wanted to speed it up, make sure president was breeched, make sure the president went to camp david to make a final decision. he was an incity day or the of the decision-making process. you can t ignore opticings of this. he walks out, there are all the members of the military in the audience, clearly in uniform. they re playing hail to chief. he s standing and we see the picture there flanked by the american flag. and the critics say this was about politics, this was about him wanting to look strong at a time when clearly he d had a horrible week, he looked very weak, the polls showed him to be very weak. how much of this was a political decision? the decision itself was made with consultation with his military advisers, but you can always tharg the pomp and circumstance of these kind of events, a national address is of