Has Joe Biden slipped out of the tent?

The latest round of Biden bashing seems to have started with David Sirota. As he rightly points out, progressive Democrats have more than a few bones to pick with Senator Biden lately. After all, he...

...led the fight to pass the bankruptcy bill, voted against limiting the interest credit card companies can gouge consumers with, voted against limiting predatory lending, voted against protecting consumers when their identity is stolen, voted for the Iraq War and voted to confirm Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Apparently, though, none of those was enough to start up a drum roll for Biden's banishment from respectable Party circles. Nope, that took the ultimate sin, criticism of Howard Dean. Steve Gilliard's more specific...

Let me explain this slowly: if you go after Dean, people will go after you. Why? Because you have failed. Biden has failed repeatedly to defend the principles of the party...

I agree that Biden's continued protestations that Dean doesn't speak for him are hardly helpful, providing continued distraction from far more important policy questions. Of course, from Joe's standpoint, he might argue that he's trying to preserve some independence from the Chairman since he fancies himself (not, I understand, without justification) a significant dealmaker in a hostile environment, and preservation of some relationships among the majority is important to him in that role.

Still, I wish he'd shut up. His repetitious pomposity is as boring as Joe Lieberman's whiny sanctimony. By now, I think everyone who cares knows that Howard Dean doesn't speak for Joe Biden. So shut up, Joe.

Still, it's really no more helpful to attack and discredit a Democratic Senator who will, for better or worse, doubtless continue to be a regular booking on the Sunday shows, who will be solicited for comment by the national media and who will be seen by the general public as every bit as much a spokesman for the Democratic Party as Howard Dean.

It's especially unhelpful to base those attacks on the misguided attempt to canonize Dean and shield him from any possible critique. Sirota offers a bargain…

Is it a deal, Joe? We won't speak for you, as long as you never, ever try to claim your record is representative of us.

Well, what is that record, anyway? I hopped over to Project Vote Smart to see just what Joe might have done for us lately. Here are some recent ratings…

NARAL 100%
ACLU 86%
NAACP 100%
NEA 90%
League Of Conservation Voters 92%
AFL-CIO 100%
Americans For Democratic Action 95%

Gee, if that's not representative of the Democratic Party in general, it probably errs to the left a bit. Despite his uncomfortably close ties to the financial services industry, leading to several of the recent missteps in Sirota's list, the National Journal found that...

in 2004, Senator Biden voted more liberal on economic policy issues than 93 percent of the Senators.

I've got to think that meets most standards of mandatory purity for a Democratic Senator.

Is Joe Biden an imperfect progressive? No doubt. Could we all stand to hear a lot less of him? Well, I certainly could. Is he the enemy? Hardly.

I'm proud to be a member of a political party big enough to embrace Howard Dean and Joe Biden (actually, that's not a very vast span). They're both human, and hence flawed, and it's fair to call them to account for those flaws when they seem to hinder our efforts. It's also important, though, to remember that they're both Democrats and equally worthy of credit for their good efforts on our behalf in their respective arenas.

Now, can we save the purge talk until we've got, oh, 85 or so Democratic Senators?