This is all my fault!

You heard me.  All this Biden-bashing going on here in the hallways, and the Biden-bashing-bashing, fistfights and piefights spilling out onto the front lawn, with formerly cordial people calling each other terrible names and suddenly thinking dreadful thoughts of those whom they would have previously hailed as buddies of the bosomest sort.

My bad.  It was me.

And it’s not the first time, either.

I have, you see, what might be termed an astringent effect on any political candidate whose way I aim the slightest bit of admiration.  It was me, for instance, who sunk Gary Hart, back in the ‘80s.  He was making some early noise in his run for president.  But then, I let fall from my lips the fatal words: "Say, that Gary Hart looks like he might actually be somebody worth electing!"

Boom.  Next stop, Monkey Business.

Howard Dean?  That was me, too.  All I had to do was utter to my wife at breakfast over the top of my folded paper, "I believe that Gov. Dean may have a timber or two of the finest presidential sort in the old lumberyard," and next day, the bottom fell out in Iowa and he began rehearsing for a Broadway revival of Greystoke, Lord of the Apes.

Ed Muskie?  Me.  Left him sobbing.  Mike Dukakis?  I might as well have buckled the Snoopy helmet on his head myself, and handed Roger Ailes and Lee Atwater a picture of Willie Horton kissing Dukakis on both cheeks as he renewed his ACLU card.

I am a two-time offender on Joe Biden.  First time was 1988.  Though experience should have taught me to refrain, I mentioned over cocktails one afternoon, "You know, this Biden fellow, he sounds like a sharp cookie."  Immediately the man would not shut up.  Would. Not. Shut. Up.  Small inquiries were met with two-hour answers.  His voice became to him the loveliest sound in the world.

And I set him aside, in my mind, for a while.  

Then, just a while back, I found myself muttering, "Well, for all this Joe Biden is a blabbermouth pantload, I don't want to be too harsh on him.  I like the way he’s giving it to the president on Iraq."

And you see what has happened.  Biden down in flames, taking both Kossack amity and Democratic comity with him.

Sigh.

(I have this awful effect on sports teams, too, as fans of the San Francisco Giants and Seattle Mariners can attest, not to mention several high school teams who have mysteriously managed to lose every game for seasons on end.  No general manager has yet taken me up on my offer never to think kindly of their teams again in return for a paltry million or two --far less than they pay a 3rd sting catcher whose impact on their success is far less).  

But.  It could be that a candidate, or a 527 somewhere, would care to pony up--to keep me from saying anything nice about their candidate?  Money well spent, as Joe Biden will tell you.

Hillary?  Obama?  Governor Richardson?