Michelle Obama got some of her biggest applause last night when she thanked "People like Hillary Clinton, who put those 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling, so that our daughters and sons can dream a little bigger and aim a little higher." Against the backdrop of a press- and chattering-class fueled story about an enduring split between die-hard Hillary backers and Barack Obama, it was a deft political move.

Watching Michelle, I couldn't help but think that she might also have given a shout-out to Condoleezza Rice. Isn't it likely that Americans, accustomed to seeing an assertive African-American woman on TV every night for the past seven years, are more comfortable with Michelle Obama as a result? After Michelle's speech, Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann of MSNBC were marveling at the fact that six years ago, it would have been hard to imagine an African-American family up on the stage as a possible first family. For that, the Obamas may have Rice to thank.

As a side note, I noticed that, as of now, the Secretary isn't speaking at the Republican National Convention, though she did in 2000. Given an opportunity on CNN in July to publicly endorse John McCain, she declined to do so even as her name was being batted around as a vice presidential pick. White House spokesman Tony Fratto said yesterday that Rice "has made clear who she intends to vote for and that would be Senator McCain," but I'm not sure she has said so explicitly. She has said nice things about Obama, and this strikes me as less than a ringing endorsement of his rival:

Look, I'm a Republican, all right? Sen. McCain is a fine patriot, and ... he would be a great president. But there's something to be said for fresh blood. And I know that there are a lot of very good people who could be his vice president."

This Sunday on Meet the Press, Tom Brokaw interviewed Caroline Kennedy, one of Obama's vetting team members, on the process of selecting Joe Biden for vice president. Brokaw was probably a bit surprised to learn that his name was on the list as well:

MR. BROKAW: Did you hear from a lot of people, including your own family members, about recommendations that they had or ideas that they might have had?

MS. KENNEDY: My family is so shy, you know?

MR. BROKAW: Yes, I can imagine.

MS. KENNEDY: Of--yeah, I did, and we really...

MR. BROKAW: There were no cousins who said, "Put my name out there."

MS. KENNEDY: Yeah, put my name on, yeah. No, "I know you're doing this to put your name on," that kind of thing. Yeah. No, there was a--you know, we reached out, obviously, I heard from my family, and I trust their judgment a lot. And then, you know, we went around and talked to a number of colleagues, groups, people who care, women, lots of different kinds of people, and then, you know, I did get a lot of unsolicited suggestions, a lot of people nominated themselves. Not you, but others, so, you know, your name came up.

MR. BROKAW: My name came up? In a dismissive and derisive fashion, of course.

MS. KENNEDY: Yeah, right.

Remember how Joe Biden said he was "not interested in being vice president"?

Well, turns out his staff was pushing hard to make him the choice, the Wall Street Journal reports, in a must-read story that offers a rare glimpse at Barack Obama's selection process.

I think Joe Biden is a smart choice for Barack Obama. With nearly 36 years in Washington and much of it atop the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, the Delaware senator's got decades of knowledge about how the U.S. national-security apparatus works and a clear-eyed, unromantic view of America's role in the world.

This experience has made Biden nothing if not extremely confident in his views, which makes him well suited to play the role of Democratic attack dog on foreign policy.

One of his favorite tactics is ridicule: Everyone remembers him saying that a Rudy Giuliani sentence has only three words: "a noun, a verb, and 9/11" during the primary season. But Biden's a pretty serious guy, too. He believes Democrats, who usually poll below Republicans on national security, shouldn't "play defense on foreign affairs," and he leads by example in his frequent op-eds and appearances on the Sunday talk shows.

Watch him take on President Bush here on Meet the Press:

The big rap on Biden, of course, is that he's gaffe-prone and likes to talk, and that's certainly true. Dana Milbank had some fun with the prolix Delaware senator after his questioning of Bush Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr.:

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), 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 got a good sense of humor about it, though: Watch him eat humble pie on the Daily Show just after he called Barack Obama "the first mainstream African-American... who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." Asked during one of the Democratic debates if he thought he could control himself as president, he simply said, "Yes."

But as much as he likes to talk, Biden's actually a pretty nuanced foreign-policy thinker. He doesn't have strong ideological views, so he's hard to pigeonhole. Looking over his statements and policies over the years, I'd say he hews to a pragmatic form of liberal internationalism backed by American power. I think he takes his responsibilities very seriously.

He uses the term "national interests" frequently, but he's not quite a Scowcroftian realist -- as his push for action in the Balkans and Sudan demonstrates. Nor is he quite a "liberal hawk," either. He has little patience for sweeping rhetoric about how the United States is bringing freedom and democracy to Iraq, and he doesn't (unlike certain other Democratic senators who were passed over for veep) default to the hawkish position on national security just for the sake of sounding "tough". He believes that some situations call for toughness (Sudan) while others call for engagement (Iran). He understands both the need for and the limits of multilateral institutions, and he doesn't see multilateralism as an end in itself, unlike some in his party.

That said, Biden doesn't bat 100 percent. He went ahead and supported the Iraq war despite warning that President Bush was underestimating the risks (he now says he didn't realize Bush would be so incompetent and that he thought Saddam could be deposed by other means). He called the surge "a tragic mistake" in February 2007 while John McCain has backing it wholeheartedly.

But he has gotten lots of other issues right, in my view: He has been calling for years for more resources in Afghanistan, for a more coherent U.S. relationship with Russia, for engagement with Iran, for a broader U.S. strategy toward Pakistan, and so on.

How much influence will Biden have on Obama's foreign-policy views? We'll have to see. But I imagine it will be considerable. Biden doesn't seem like the kind of guy who will simply stick to the talking points he's handed. Should be fun to watch.

Good quip here from Biden, speaking right now in Springfield, IL. When Americans are sitting around trying to pay their bills, he said, "[McCain] won't know which of the seven kitchen tables to sit at."

Here's Biden on NBC's Meet the Press on June 22:

And here's the transcript:

MR. WILLIAMS:  Senator Biden, I don't mean to interrupt.

SEN. BIDEN:  No, I understand.

MR. WILLIAMS:  You're in the news yourself this past week.

SEN. BIDEN:  Uh-oh.  What did I do?

MR. WILLIAMS:  You interested in the vice presidency?

SEN. BIDEN:  I am not interested in the vice presidency.

MR. WILLIAMS:  You're not interested in the vice presidency.

SEN. BIDEN:  I'm not interested.

MR. WILLIAMS:  MEET THE PRESS, April 29th, 2007, Tim Russert asks Joe Biden, "You interested in being vice president?" "No, I will not be vice president under any circumstances." But in a different answer, you answered you'd have to say yes.  I don't know, so...

SEN. BIDEN:  Well, no.  The bottom--look, the--when I was asked that question, I thought I was still going to be president.  Now--number one, I, I am not interested in being vice president.  I've let the candidate know.  If the candidate asks me to be vice president, the answer is I got to say yes. But he's not going to ask me.  Look, you cannot walk away...

MR. WILLIAMS:  Now...

SEN. BIDEN:  ...when your party--if the party nominee asked him to be vice...

MR. WILLIAMS:  Is that a rule out or a rule in?

SEN. BIDEN:  No, it--no, it's--I don't--I'm not interested.  I'm--my--I answer your question honestly.

MR. WILLIAMS:  But if asked?

SEN. BIDEN:  Unlike most other people, I'm being straight with you.  If asked, I will do it.  I've made it clear I do not want to be asked.

MR. WILLIAMS:  Do not want to be asked.  But if asked, the answer, of course, would be yes.

SEN. BIDEN:  Of course it would, because the--if the president--if the presidential nominee thought I could help him win, am I going to say to the first African-American candidate about to make history in the world that, "No, I will not help you out like you want me to"?  Of course, I'm--I'll say yes.

For once, the conventional wisdom was right: Barack Obama has chosen Joe Biden to be his running mate.

There's already an incredible amount of instant punditry out there on Obama's pick (you can find some of it here), but I believe in giving people a chance to speak for themselves before you characterize them one way or another (we're already seeing stuff like: He's Obama's Cheney! It's the all-talk ticket! etc.).

So, here's a long, candid interview that Biden gave to Charlie Rose last August. Check it out:

More later...

Any minute now, Barack Obama may announce his running mate. It could easily be somebody off the media radar (e.g. Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, Texas Rep. Chet Edwards), but these are the four names that have been batted around most often by the cognoscenti.

So, my colleagues Joshua Keating, Patrick Fitzgerald, and I put this handy list of quotes together to help you get a read on how Obama's veep choice views the world. Feel free, of course, to chime in via comments with your own citations.

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Joseph Biden, Jr., Delaware senator, 65

Biden on Iraq: "The president should begin a responsible redeployment of our combat forces from Iraq so that we can meet the many other challenges we face around the world, starting with taking the fight to Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan -- the people who actually attacked us on 9-11."

—Press release, July 18, 2008

Biden on Afghanistan: "Afghanistan is slipping toward failure. The Taliban is back, violence is up, drug production is booming and the Afghans are losing faith in their government. All the legs of our strategy — security, counternarcotics efforts, reconstruction and governance — have gone wobbly.... If we should have had a surge anywhere, it is Afghanistan."

—New York Times, Mar. 2, 2008

Biden on Russia: "Ever since President Bush infamously gazed into Mr. Putin's soul in 2001, Washington has used photo opportunities as a proxy for a serious Russia policy. The administration has airbrushed Russian belligerence and rebuffed some sensible Kremlin proposals, such as legally-binding extensions to arms control treaties.... Our top priority should be nuclear nonproliferation and arms control, including a common approach to Iran and the security of Russia's own weapons and nuclear materials."

—Wall Street Journal, Mar. 24, 2008

Biden on trade: "Every new trade agreement should have built into it... [e]nvironmental standards and labor standards. But we talk about it in terms of preserving jobs here, but it's also about human rights. Signing an agreement knowing they're going to exploit workers either by polluting their lungs or their drinking water and/or putting them in a position where they're getting paid a couple bucks a week. So it should be a condition to every trade agreement that we engage in."

—2007 Des Moines Register Democratic Debate, Dec. 13, 2007

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Evan Bayh, Indiana senator, 52

Bayh on Iraq: "To those who say the threat is not imminent, after 9/11, how long can we afford to wait? To those who say regime change is not an appropriate reason for acting, I say weapons of mass destruction and the regime of Saddam Hussein are one and indivisible. To remove weapons of mass destruction, we must remove that regime. To think anything else is to delude ourselves."

—Senate floor, Oct. 8, 2002

Bayh on Afghanistan: "We have five times as many troops stationed in Iraq as we do in Afghanistan currently. How do we -- how do you square that, when the threat currently is greater in terms of a terrorist strike from one place and yet we're devoting five times of the amount of resources and troops to a different place?"

—Senate Armed Services Committee Hearing on Iraq, Apr. 8, 2008

Bayh on Russia: "[T]he continued participation of the Russian Federation in the Group of 8 nations should be conditioned on the Russian Government voluntarily accepting and adhering to the norms and standards of democracy."

—109th CONGRESS, 1st Session, S. CON. RES. 14, Feb. 17, 2005 (a Senate resolution cosponsored by Sens. Bayh, Lieberman, and McCain)

Bayh on trade: "America must commit itself… to doing those things that are necessary to succeed in the global marketplace. Nothing else will do. We cannot wall up our country. We cannot shut out those with whom we would compete."

—Senate floor, Apr. 27, 2005

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Tim Kaine, Virginia governor, 50

Kaine on Iraq: "Our troops are doing a great job over there. That doesn't change the fact that the rationale we were given is wrong and we need to have a plausible strategy for withdrawing from Iraq, and I think that is something that Prime Minister al-Maliki has said."

—CNN, Aug. 6, 2008

Kaine on Afghanistan: "The story of what the United States is accomplishing in Afghanistan is remarkable in many ways, more noble and less morally and operationally complicated than our efforts in Iraq… In just a few short years, the Afghans have written a constitution, elected a president and now seated a parliament... [M]ost Afghans appreciate what we are doing and want us to stay."

—Kabul, Afghanistan, Mar. 17, 2006

Kaine on Russia: "[T]he goal is to use diplomatic means to get Russia to live by the cease-fire. And if diplomacy is the strategy at this point, measured tones is the way to go. And I think that kind of balance is what the situation needs."

—Meet the Press, Aug. 17, 2008

Kaine on trade: "The only way you'll succeed is by being an aggressive competitor rather than trying to hoard your dwindling assets.''

—Bloomberg, May 30, 2008

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Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas governor, 60

Of all the contenders, the Kansas governor's beliefs about foreign affairs are the least well known. She has made few specific comments on U.S. policy, focusing instead on how America's overseas engagements have sapped the country's resources and morale:

"Well, states all over the country are not only missing personnel, National Guard troops are -- about 40 percent of the troops on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan -- but we’re missing the equipment. When the troops get deployed, the equipment goes with them."

—CNN, May 7, 2007

"The last five years have cost us dearly -- in lives lost; in thousands of wounded warriors whose futures may never be the same; in challenges not met here at home because our resources were committed elsewhere. America's foreign policy has left us with fewer allies and more enemies."

—State of the Union response, January 28, 2008