Joe Biden didn’t disappoint last night.  There was that Amtrak mention:

“I profoundly disagree with the direction that John wants to take the country, from Afghanistan to Iraq. From Amtrak to veterans.”

Hardly a tough prediction that he’d plug that massively subsidized program, right?

Well, here’s the angle we didn’t anticipate.  And it wasn’t a recognition of all the toll booth operators in Delaware and up and down the I-95 corridor who work hard with low pay to make this a better country despite Bush’s invasion of Iraq.  No, it was this:

But after days of nervous speculation about how the long and often contentious competition would end here in Denver, the nomination-by-acclamation set off a joyous scene on the convention floor, as delegates danced to the strains of “Love Train” …

Outstanding! Wonderful subliminal messaging.  Boy, are they working it.  Now, let’s dare them to make use of this train …

We liked Michael Silence’s take on the news:

Fishbowl headline:

“Milbank, a Banana, and a Condom”

What a fun item we see on Instapundit:

OOPS:

Former Texas Rep. Charlie Wilson — yes, that Charlie Wilson — was speaking at an anti-war rally when he, um, flubbed a line:

“We should be led by Osama bin Laden,” he said, then quickly corrected himself. “I mean Obama and Biden.”

We’re not fazed. We still admire Charlie Wilson.  But they poor guy may have lost a step.  Here’s Charlie in happier, more on-message times:

Hope that clears things up for the Obama folks and they give him a speaking role at the convention.  Now that’s who we mean by Democrats with foreign policy experience.

James Carville:

Clinton loyalist James Carville exploded on CNN Monday night at the Obama-run convention: “If this party has a message, it’s done a hell of a job hiding it tonight.”

Ed Rendell:

Pennsylvania Gov. Edward G. Rendell, a prominent Clinton supporter, said that Obama is still struggling to connect with working-class voters and that the presumptive nominee reminded him of Adlai Stevenson, the brainy Illinoisan who lost the presidential campaigns of 1952 and 1956.

“You ask him a question, and he gives you a six-minute answer,” Rendell told Washington Post reporters and editors. “And the six-minute answer is smart as all get-out. It’s intellectual. It’s well framed. It takes care of all the contingencies. But it’s a lousy sound bite.”

After reading this …

The story of Biden and Amtrak starts with Biden’s election to the Senate in 1972

… and this …

Amtrak has become a recurring character in the hearings Biden participates in. “Gentlemen, I apologize,” he told a Judiciary Committee hearing in 1996 when he showed up late. “One of those things that I keep telling my colleagues: If they fully funded Amtrak, I would not be late. [Pause.] And some suggest that’s why they don’t fully fund Amtrak.”

… we’ve resolved: If anyone mentions Amtrak at the Democrat convention tonight — Joe Biden night — we’ll never ride Amtrak again.

Instead, we’ll switch to a more attractive mode of transportation, one that doesn’t require an annual $1.35 billion federal subsidy.  This:

Gotta love their classic pun of a headline:

“Name Calling is the Most Sincere Form of Slattery”

Funniest congressional joke since Jim Traficant.

And while we’re at it, after giving the mysterious folks who run FamousDC the Marc Twain, send them off on the Marc Train.