NYT, CNN or NBCNews has a very very damaging story in the pipeline - David Frum

[DFW]

139. Not a peep, but maybe I had better elaborate

First of all, I just had a week from hell, workwise. Monday was München and Augsburg, Tuesday was Stuttgart, Wednesday was Brussels, Thursday was Paris and Friday was IJsselstein (NL). Most posting I have done this week was either from a train somewhere or stealing from the average 4 hours sleep I have been getting. I haven't been in touch with DC at all this week, not even my brother.

Second, now that he is out of office and the story is over 8 years old, I will tell you how I knew of Biden's selection 8 hours before it was made public.

My brother's wife is from Japan, and their second son has particularly strong Asian features. He was (at the time) small for his age, which was 18 in 2008. His mom used to drop him off for swimming practice in a Northern Virginia pool in the morning during the summer. My nephew had interned for Matt Angle's Texas Democrat Lone Star Project, and was very into politics (still is, actually). At the pool, early that morning, he was alone with two women who happened to be from Biden's office. They just assumed the quiet kid with Asian features understood no English, or was too young to grasp what they were talking about--a very foolish assumption to make around Washington, D.C., but there you have it. They knew already of Biden's selection, and were talking openly about it, assuming that my nephew would have no earthly clue what they were talking about. My nephew informed the rest of the family immediately. I was in the States at the time, so I heard within the hour. I wouldn't get Biden's staff in trouble by publicly disclosing where I had heard the information, and nor did I want to compromise my nephew's chances of picking up other cool bits and passing them on to the rest of the family. So, when I posted on DU (and, after the reaction, ONLY on DU), I got roundly trashed for not disclosing my source, and the unlikelihood that my information was solid. Obviously, it couldn't have been more solid, but I couldn't say so at the time.