Joe Biden: Why Hide This Pick?

So, it's Joe Biden -- it isn't Bayh or Kaine, it isn't Clinton, there's a chartered flight going from Delaware to Chicago tomorrow morning, and Secret Service has been dispatched to the Biden home. Also, he used the lead pipe in the conservatory.

Anyway, while the media's had a big night chronicling the crazy, this has been the ultimate burial of a campaign announcement that will likely be met with solid approval from his party base, given the Evan Bayh scare. A quick sampling:

"From my point of view, Senator Joe Biden is an inspiring, experienced, over-the-top smart, fast-running boss who is a handful. He wrestles with ideas. He wrestles with his team. They knock him back. He knocks them back. He gives great zinger speeches and occasionally zinger gaffes. And they all laugh it off and move forward." -Steve Clemons, Huffington Post

"You know, I'm happy about this. Picking a VP just to swing one state like Tim Kaine's Virginia isn't guaranteed to work, and a boring moderate whose only purpose would have been to appease the primary losers Hillary supporters would have only undercut Obama. With Biden, you get the experience factor, the national security credentials, and blue-collar appeal." -Goldni

So, what the hell did the Obama camp bury this story so much for?

Even I like the pick; Biden brings far more sensible foreign policy to the table, and he also brings the chance he'll say something completely idiotic. As Patrick Ruffini argued, Biden's inability to filter his thoughts could give the McCain campaign a precious, precious gift -- who can forget this one from last year?

Obama-Biden 2008! If only they had a platform on which to stand. But Biden's lack of verbal restraint doesn't really qualify as so terrible, it's like Hillary's Manchurian Candidate-ness, or Robert Downey Jr.'s drug problems -- always there, sometimes a problem, sometimes more than a little endearing.

No, my sneaking suspicion for this pick and this media corner pushing is that Obama doesn't want any of this to detract from himself. Biden elevates the experience, Blue Collar, and foreign policy, while creating somebody who can attack McCain. Individualist assassin will be Biden's role; Obama sought somebody who could do that and never steal a headline (Hillary) or a profile story (Kaine, Bayh, Sebelius) from him.