Stand by for Biden. UPDATE: He won't run.

He's about to say something in the Rose Garden.

On CNN, they're indicating that he's going to say he's not running... because the President and other senior officials are there.

ADDED: He says the time window has closed, and it's too late to mount a campaign.

MORE: With Obama standing next to him, Biden says that Democrats should not only "protect" Obama's record, they should "run" on that record. Do I see the door left open a crack? If Hillary doesn't straighten up and run on Barack Obama's record, Biden might have to get in.

AND: Why is he making a campaign speech?

"Yes, the debate was comfortable to Democrats concerned about their front-runner, but it should also have been worrisome to Democrats concerned about their bench."

"'The fact she did well should surprise no one,' a Biden activist told me. 'If she didn’t do well against those guys, then God help our party.” If something serious were to happen to Clinton — self-inflicted or not — the party would be entering a presidential race on favorable terrain but with a substantial talent problem. Martin O’Malley presented no rationale for a campaign; Jim Webb sounded bitter and bizarre; Lincoln Chafee at times appeared confused why he was even onstage. Sanders electrified his core supporters but didn’t suggest any newfound ability to sell his far-left platform to the general public. In a scenario where a Clinton campaign implodes, Democrats will again be desperate for a new candidate and will again review the options. Al Gore’s name will be floated. 'Al Gore is doing nothing,' said a Democrat who sits on a board with him. Same with John Kerry. 'John has not given the slightest indication he would do this,' Bob Shrum, who ran Kerry’s 2004 campaign, told me. What will be real is Biden."

From "We Are Already Months Into the Biden Campaign," by Gabriel Sherman in New York Magazine. 

If we don't get Joe Biden, there won't be one candidate who's running on Barack Obama's record.

8 years ago, Obama ran on "CHANGE," which is what we expect from the candidate from the party that hasn't held the presidency, but now, is the argument to be "CHANGE," once again, including from every candidate in Obama's own party?

Last night, on "60 Minutes," Steve Kroft confronted Obama with the stark fact: "Right now, there's nobody on either side of the aisle that is exactly running on your record." And the NYT has an article "A Likely Debate Highlight: Democrats’ Distance From Obama":

In the seven years since Mr. Obama entered the White House on a wave of excitement, Democrats have developed a complicated relationship with their standard-bearer. And that is especially true for those running for their party’s nomination.

Mr. Obama’s legacy and how much a Democratic successor should embrace it will hover over the debate... Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Sanders promise different approaches from Mr. Obama’s, as much in style as in substance.....

Shouldn't there be a voice saying Obama's been good, we need more of the same? Whether you believe we need more of the same or not, don't you think that should be one of the options for voters and one of the positions taken in the debate? I think there are plenty of Americans who'd like a way to say that Obama has been a success. How sad — for some, at least — to see our President abandoned, run away from! Or at least, isn't it ridiculous, every 4 or 8 years, to hear a new set of imperfect individuals claiming that they've got something different and it's going to be better than the reality we just experienced?

When was the last President who got support from his party's follow-on candidate? John McCain ran away from George W. Bush, and Al Gore distanced himself from Bill Clinton. You have to go back to 1988 to find a candidate who reinforced his party's President.

I'd like to see Joe Biden enter the race with the focused message that Obama has been good, and I am offering America not change, but continuity. Otherwise, it's a grim 15 months we face, with a President getting torn down from all sides. I'm not saying I want a continuation of Obama, only that I want one voice in the debate arguing for the continuation. We need that and we deserve to hear that, not merely, within the President's party, Hillary and Bernie fighting to get better distance between themselves and our President.

Run, Joe!

Obama distances himself from Hillary's email troubles.

From the transcript of last night's "60 Minutes":

Steve Kroft: Did you know about Hillary Clinton's use of private email server--

President Barack Obama: No.

He's quick with that "no."

Steve Kroft: --while she was Secretary of State?

President Barack Obama: No.

Steve Kroft: Do you think it posed a national security problem?

President Barack Obama: I don't think it posed a national security problem. I think that it was a mistake that she has acknowledged and-- you know, as a general proposition, when we're in these offices, we have to be more sensitive and stay as far away from the line as possible when it comes to how we handle information, how we handle our own personal data. And, you know, she made a mistake. She has acknowledged it. I do think that the way it's been ginned-up is in part because of-- in part-- because of politics. And I think she'd be the first to acknowledge that maybe she could have handled the original decision better and the disclosures more quickly. But--

The repetition of "in part" is telling. There's a criticism in there. Republicans are making too big a deal of it. But Hillary made mistakes.

Steve Kroft: What was your reaction when you found out about it?

President Barack Obama: This is one of those issues that I think is legitimate, but the fact that for the last three months this is all that's been spoken about is an indication that we're in presidential political season.

Obama did not answer the question. Kroft interrupted with a question, Obama continued answering the question he was was working on, and Kroft did not repeat the question. Obama has a packaged, distancing message, and he gets it out.

Steve Kroft: Do you agree with what President Clinton has said and Secretary Clinton has said, that this is not-- not that big a deal. Do you agree with that?

Obama has already said that the Republicans have made too big of a deal out of it, but the new question tries to eliminate the comparative. It could be a big deal but not as big a deal as the Republicans have made out of it.

President Barack Obama: Well, I'm not going to comment on--

Steve Kroft: You think it's not that big a deal--

President Barack Obama: What I think is that it is important for her to answer these questions to the satisfaction of the American public. And they can make their own judgment. I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered.

More distancing. He covers the ground he could be held responsible for — America's national security — and leaves her to explain herself to the American public. The question wasn't, however, whether Hillary will persuade Americans to let her off the hook, but whether it's "that big a deal." Obama did not help her off the hook. He won't say. And the next question shows why he was smart not to let Kroft nail him down:

Steve Kroft: This administration has prosecuted people for having classified material on their private computers.

President Barack Obama: Well, I-- there's no doubt that there had been breaches, and these are all a matter of degree. We don't get an impression that here there was purposely efforts-- on-- in-- to hide something or to squirrel away information. But again, I'm gonna leave it to--

Squirrel!

Steve Kroft: If she had come to you.

President Barack Obama: I'm going to leave it to Hillary when she has an interview with you to address all these questions.

And so the deflecting of Hillary email questions skitters to an end. You got a problem with Hillary, go ask Hillary.

Fitly enough, the next question is whether he wants Joe Biden to get into the race, a question set up by an implicit dig at Hillary — "Right now, there's nobody on either side of the aisle that is exactly running on your record." Obama, continuing his evasiveness, refuses to say: It's up to Joe to decide, but what a great vice president Joe Biden has been:

I think Joe will go down as one of the finest vice presidents in history, and one of the more consequential. 

Didn't every viewer make the same wisecrack we did? Finest vice president... that's not saying much!

The idea that Biden shouldn't run because he won't be able to answer the question "Why are you running?"

I think that's the point of this Slate article "Joe Biden’s Big Question/Why are you running?" by John Dickerson. Key paragraph:

But if Joe Biden runs, it will be a character campaign against Hillary Clinton. That doesn’t mean there won’t be specifics discussed about wages and health care and the U.S. role overseas. But at its heart what will have gotten Biden in the race and what will animate it will be character—both his own and the perception that Clinton’s isn’t strong.

And he can't come out and say that — right? — so when he's asked the inevitable question he'll have to use that story about his son's dying wish. But that's not a reason why we should vote for him. And Beau didn't tell him to get out there and destroy Hillary, but only to go ahead and pursue your decades-long dream. And that's not a reason that explains why we should vote for him — because he's always wanted it and his son, who died, backed him up. It has to be that Hillary's no good, and that will have to be his message, the message he won't be able to come out and openly admit. That's what I get from Dickerson's piece, which I read as pressuring Biden not to run.

And yet, I don't think it's obvious that Biden can't put together a campaign that's basically anti-Hillary but manages to keep a veneer of positivity constructed out of the death of Beau.

If Biden enters the race, Hillary is ready to try to crush him.

"According to the source, the [oppo] research has turned up material on Biden’s ties to Wall Street; his reluctance to support the raid that killed Osma bin Laden; and his role in the Anita Hill saga as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee."

Is that supposed to scare him off?

"Biden expected to skip first Democratic debate."

CNN reports.

So then if, at the last minute, he decides to drop in — and CNN has given him until the last minute to decide — it will be an opportunity for media folk to whip out their favorite adverb: unexpectedly!

It's all just so unfair to Hillary. Don't prepare to fend off Biden? And yet, he may surprise us. If it seems advantageous when the time comes. He's got 22 days to tease us, excite us (over what is essentially an utterly boring prospect — Joe Biden running for President again).