Biden & the "Dead Cat Bounce"

-- PRINCETON, NJ -- It's official: Barack Obama has received no bounce in voter support out of his selection of Sen. Joe Biden to be his vice presidential running mate.

Say it ain't so, Joe!

Gallup Poll Daily tracking from Aug. 23-25, the first three-day period falling entirely after Obama's Saturday morning vice presidential announcement, shows 46% of national registered voters backing John McCain and 44% supporting Obama, not appreciably different from the previous week's standing for both candidates.

This is the first time since Obama clinched the nomination in early June, though, that McCain has held any kind of advantage over Obama in Gallup Poll Daily tracking.

But, hey... he'll always have Teddy.

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RELATED: What about the plagiarism?

The Biden episode merits revisiting because as acts of plagiarism go, it was spectacular, and because it points to other dicey chapters in his life.

To know Biden in full, you must appreciate his parts.

And guess what?

It wasn't the first time he'd done it.

If you give Biden the benefit of the doubt—and I don't—you'd expect that such a calamitous "mistake" from his youth would have seared into his mind the importance of keeping his mitts off of other people's words.

That it didn't speaks terabytes about his character.

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