Joe Biden will make his run for President official today. If you haven't read Biden's snarky take down of his major Presidential rivals over their plans for Iraq in the New York Observer, it's well worth the time. Though Biden is prone to shooting off his mouth, this wasn't some spontaneous or accidental piece of infighting. Biden has to make news, and belittling his colleagues' plans for dealing with Iraq also helps serve the purpose of trying to lift himself up as the only experienced adult in the room (contra Edwards and Obama) who also has a chance of winning (contra Hillary).

In an interview with Thomas Fitzgerald of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Biden discusses the race and lessons learned from his 1987 crash and burn (which he sums up very Confucian-like by saying "words matter" and "to lose one's temper is not a good thing.")

If you listen to the raw audio of Fitzgerald's phone interview with Biden, the Senator also discusses whether governors have the edge in the race this time around or whether the "curse of the Senate" will finally be broken. Biden says Vilsack and Richardson (and Romney on the Republican side) are all decent fellows, but:

The drawback that they have, and it's almost not fair to them, is that the likelihood of the American voters deciding to turn to a one-term governor again while the world is in turmoil, without any demonstrable experience as to a clearly thought out foreign policy and dealing with issues of war and peace. It may happen, but let me put it this way: I think this is the one race probably in the last 75 years where you'd rather be a well-respected Senator than a well-respected governor.

Vilsack and Richardson would be quick to point out that they're both two term Governors (Romney is a one-termer) - but then again so was George W. Bush. Nevertheless, I think Biden might have a point about voters gravitating less toward a state executive than in the past because the country is so deeply fixated on external affairs, despite the fact that Senators are going to carry the burden of some very tough votes into the primary. But, ironically enough, if the 2008 race does come down to leadership and competence in conducting foreign affairs and the War on Terror, the person who might be most well positioned of all is neither a state executive or a vote-casting Senator: Rudolf Giuliani.

Finally, in what is either a stroke of bad luck or a terrible omen, on the same day Senator Biden is launching his bid for the White House, Bloomberg is reporting that his Washington-lobbyist son, R. Hunter Biden, has been slapped with a lawsuit by a former partner who says he was squeezed out of the purchase of a hedge-fund.