During World War II there was a saying that, ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships.”

Loose lips can also sink candidates and yesterday following a 3 AM text message – that Hillary Clinton didn’t answer – from Obama announcing to his followers that Sen Joseph R. Biden Jr., (D-Del) was his selection for Vice President, the two appeared together to solidify the relationship and it was then when reporters were asking each other, “Did he really say that?”

What followed from Springfield, Ill., was enough to make the Affleck duck say, “huh!”

When introducing his running mate, Obama said, “So let me introduce to you the next president — the next vice president of the US of America, Joe Biden.”

If this wasn’t bad enough, Biden called the presumptive Democratic nominee, “Barack America” instead of Barack Obama.

Obama can be thankful that he — Biden — didn’t say “Barack Islam.”

Later in his speech Biden said, “Ladies and gentlemen, my wife Jill, who you’ll meet soon, is drop dead gorgeous.  My wife Jill, who you’ll meet soon, she also has her doctorate degree, which is a problem,” Biden said.  “But all kidding aside, my Jill, my Jill, my wife Jill and I are honored to join Barack and Michelle on this journey, because that’s what it is, it’s a journey.”

I’ll bet the Affleck duck said “huh” again as it did following Yogi Berra’s comments in a commerical.

Biden loves Biden and, I guess, his wife, but has never been one for modesty or humility during his public comments.  During a C-Span recording Biden was responding to a question about where he went to law school and what sort of grades he received and he delivered this line, “I think I have a much higher IQ than you do.”

Obama’s campaign prides itself in message discipline and everyone knows Biden has a tendency to shoot from the lip.

For exampe back in 2006, while considering to put his hat in the ring he stepped into the middle of a controversy when he made the following comment about Indian Americans, “I’ve had a great relationship” (with Indian Americas), ” Biden said.  “In Delaware, the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans moving from India.  You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.  I’m not joking.”

When Biden finally announced his candidacy for President, a New York Observer story quoted Biden calling Obama “articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”

“Huh!

Biden, by his own admission, tends to fall in love with his own voice.

As reported in the Washington Post during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, “Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr., in his first 12 minutes of questioning the nominee, managed to get off only one question.  Instead , during his 30-minute round of questioning, Biden spoke about his own Irish American roots, his “Grandfather Finnegan,” his son’s application to Princeton (he attended the University of Pennsylvania instead, Biden said), a speech the senator gave on the Princeton campus, the fact that Biden is “not a Princeton fan,” and his views on the eyeglasses of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.).”

Biden’s downfall in the past came about as a result of potential plagiarism and resume inflation.  Back in 1987 he was a serious contender in the presidential race, according to the Washington Post,  when he borrowed a passage of a speech given by Neil Kinnock, a leader in Britain’s Labour Party, without attribution — a mistake that led to a detailed examination of Biden’s public statements that turned up several more examples of potential plagiarism and resume inflation.”

The irony of this selection by Obama is that it is in conflict with the tenet of Obama’s campaign message that if Americans want to change their government, then they have to change the people they send to Washington.

Biden has served in the Senate for the better part of the last four decades and is certainly and insider in the Beltway, but the Obama campaign wants us to know that Biden commutes almost daily via Amtrak back to his home in Delaware, whatever that significance has to not being an ‘insider?’

The McCain war room jumped on the first misstatement, saying “Barack Obama sounded as though he turned over the top spot on the ticket today to his new mentor, when he introduced Joe Biden as the next president.”

The campaign also said, “That nothing has changed since Joe Biden first made his assessment that Barack Obama is not ready to lead. He wasn’t ready then and he isn’t ready now,” a McCain spokesman said.

Nevertheless, we will be watching for the mumbles and stumbles of these candidates which will be sure to come, after all both got off to a smashing start that stumped the Affleck duck.