…which is why, of course, I am asking it. The background… comes in three parts:

• Vice President Joe Biden, when he was Senator Joe Biden, happened to be a sponsor of the Violence Against Women Act. We’ll pass to one side for a moment the current (as in, this week) controversy over the latest iteration of the law – it’s up for reauthorization – to specifically note, again, that this was Biden’s baby, as it were.
• Charlie Wilson is known mostly for three things (four, if you count the fact that he’s often confused with the infinitely better Democratic Charlie Wilson from Texas); he was the former Congressman from OH-06; Charlie Wilson of Ohio is an admitted wife-beater; and Charlie Wilson of Ohio is unaccountably running for Congress again.
• Guess where Joe Biden will be stumping for the President, this week? That’s right! OH-06! Also OH-17 (Youngstown), but Thursday Biden will be making a speech Thursday at an auto dealership in Martin’s Ferry.

Which, as has been privately pointed out to me, leads to a fascinating set of questions. Will Charlie Wilson be making an appearance at this event? If Wilson does show, will we be treated to the spectacle of seeing the Vice President and sponsor of anti-spousal abuse legislation praise a guy who was a poster child for why we might have needed the legislation in the first place? If Wilson does not show, will the administration come clean about why the wife-beater wasn’t invited to his party’s own in-district campaign event? In either case, will the press bring up the inherent rhetorical contradictions that this entire scenario represents?

No, wait, I know the answer to that last one already.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Hey, you know something? Bill Johnson (R, OH-06) STILL doesn’t beat his wife!