Posted on 08/15/2012 10:02:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The Obama campaign told The Hill on Tuesday that it “is confident Vice President Biden will be an effective foil” for Paul Ryan despite Biden’s latest gaffe. I’m not so sure, and neither are some Democrats.
Biden’s rhetorical belly-flop yesterday was a doozy. He first told a largely black audience in Danville, Va., that he hoped they could help Obama win North Carolina. He followed that up with the claim that Mitt Romney wanted to “unchain Wall Street.” He then switched to a comic down-home accent and bellowed, “They’re gonna put y’all back in chains!”
Willie Geist, a co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, was blunt: “If Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate, said that to an African-American audience, there would be calls this morning for him to get out of the race, for Mitt Romney to withdraw from the race. There’s a double standard.”
But there has been a double standard for Joe Biden for decades, and almost every reporter in Washington knows it. Last night, a frustrated Rudy Giuliani acknowledged it on CNBC. “I’ve never seen a vice president that has made as many mistakes, said as many stupid things,” he told Larry Kudlow. “I mean, there’s a real fear if, God forbid, he ever had to be entrusted with the presidency, whether he really has the mental capacity to handle it. I mean, this guy just isn’t bright. He’s never been bright. He isn’t bright. And people think, ‘Well, he just talks a little too much.’ Actually, he’s just not very smart.”
Biden has been very lucky that the national media have largely given him a pass until now. American history for the last half century has been replete with Republicans who have been portrayed by the elite media as dim or addled — from Dwight Eisenhower to Gerald Ford to Ronald Reagan and Dan Quayle to, of course, George W. Bush and Sarah Palin. No Democrat with comparable national stature has been saddled with a similar reputation. The media have tended to explain away Biden’s strange statements and unforced errors by saying, “Oh, well. That’s just Joe, you know.” Or they casually admit, “Well, he just talks a bit too much,” and then move on.
In the middle of a hotly contested presidential campaign, that may now be changing. In the Washington Post yesterday, Alexandra Petri discussed “the trouble with Joe” and took the VP to task for “periodically alarming outbursts” that are unbecoming of the second-highest office in the land. “He inspires the sort of discomfort one feels upon introducing one’s fiancé to Grandpa after he has had a Scotch too many,” Petri scolded. “His cringe-inducing gaffes . . . inspire less anger than embarrassment.” A New York publishing source told me that “Biden is now seen as a Catholic Sam Goldwyn, and that’s not a good place to be.” Sam Goldwyn was the legendary Hollywood producer who was known for malapropisms (“A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”).
The White House has to worry that for the next 82 days Joe Biden will be under tremendous scrutiny — especially given the fact that Paul Ryan has become such a media-attention magnet. Everyone is anticipating the October 11 debate between Biden and Ryan. Biden’s penchant for off-the-cuff remarks doesn’t inspire confidence that he won’t unintentionally blurt something out when facing Ryan. For example, he embarrassed the Obama administration recently by prematurely revealing he was “comfortable” with gay marriage — forcing his boss to suddenly endorse gay marriage on a timetable not of his choosing.
Biden’s erratic statements certainly should make Team Obama nervous. I’ve no doubt that some Democratic strategists would love for Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to swap jobs and bolster the Democratic ticket with a little Clinton magic. But there’s no evidence that Hillary would take that deal. If she wants to run, she is already the front-runner for the 2016 Democratic nomination and would gain no advantage by being yoked to Obama, her old adversary, for the next three months if they lost or the next four years if they won.
So Democrats are stuck with Old Joe, who will turn 70 this November. It’s said that few people vote for a presidential ticket based on who is filling the No. 2 slot. But some do, and they may matter in a very close race. It’s likely that by the time this campaign ends, a lot of people will be more nervous about Joe Biden being a heartbeat away from the presidency than about Paul Ryan.
— John Fund is national-affairs columnist for NRO.
Biden would crumble under the spotlight if he were President. I'd give it less than a week.
If everything that idiot said was into a microphone, people would run from the room screaming for teams of Doctors, and orderlies with straight jackets.
Yep... Warren is making Coakley look sane and Coupe Deville Patrick a centrist.
Lieahwatha Warren has zero crediability and the zealots with in the party has no other choice or they are just that stupid.. I would bet Debbie Downer and Lieahwahtha have been communing with the ONE over some Choom.
I do believe the One does not want to win a second term. Othugga will be the first former US President to renounce his citizenship while campaigining to run the UN on a hate America program minus the Wookie and chilldrens.. The World will go bonkers for this crap and you think we have problems now on the internaional stage! The Globalist crowd and all of the UN will be on our butts in ways we can’t fathom when Othugga pulls that stunt.
Probably the same. He would have the same bunch of idiots controlling him.
Sam Goldwyn was the legendary Hollywood producer who was known for malapropisms (“A verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on”).The writer is a moron who:
A) Doesn't know what a malapropism is (A malapropism is the misuse of similar sounding words, especially with humorous results, such as Yogi Berra's statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes")
and
B) Doesn't realize that Sam Goldwyn was making a very clever joke (based on decades of experience in verbal contracts) and knew exactly what he was doing with that sentence.
This is what government schools lead to: functional illiteracy.
The dems didn’t suffer because of Biden the first time, because they had the “Sarah Palin is just as dumb” response.
I don’t think they can pull that with Ryan.
She just made it impossible for Obama to use that particular escape hatch.
Within the sphere of liberal wisdom, how could the POTUS actually follow the advice of a ditz like Sarah Palin?
Replacing Joe would be admitting that Teh Awesome made a mistake appointing him in the first place. And Teh Awesome never makes mistakes. Replacing him now would be admitting that Teh Awesome thinks he could lose this election. And Teh Awesome never loses.
And Liz Warren would be trading one kind of trouble for another. And Hillary is at least as likely to bail out for 2016 as she is to switch from State to VP nominee in a campaign she could lose with a running mate she thinks she should have been president instead of in the first place. Now that I think of it, more so. No, Barry and Joe are stuck with each other.
Lieahwatha Warren
good one
you say “But, a Hillary VP slot cold energize the Dems.”
She may not dare to run at this time - not with the long simmering pot that is Huma now at a boiling point
I don’t think she - nor the demoRats - want to stir that pot right now
Be careful of what you ask. One of life’s enduring lesson’s is yes, things can always get worse. Much worse.
Biden does exactly the job he is supposed to do....try to make The Kenyan look smart by comparison.
This sounds like the precursor of the obama campaign’s claim that lynchings will follow Romney’s election.
Nooses everywhere again. Wait and see.
Thank you, but the credit goes I think to some Southie I heard on Howie Carr came up with it. Pretty bad when the demoncrap strong hold faithful are A. calling in to howie carr B. coming up with names like that.
I expect a press release for coming:
The great white land whale, Ted who swims with firewater on chapaquidick,who departed to burning sulfur pit, leaving Lieahwahtha Warren by the lefty shores of cambridge with no smoke’m for peace’m pipe or cash for next bigg’um digg’um great moneey pit to purchase prosperity and progress for lazy brothers and held down squaws.
I hope you challenge their idiocy. Ask them what Obama does to help the working class and poor.
You are exactly right - apologies to anyone that was insulted.
I heard yesterday from a reliable source that Obama is going to drop Biden and put in Hillary. Now that would energize their base.
Ok this might be reading into this to much but think about this for a second, who does the left and Obama hate more than America? Who Is their arch enemy? Palin. The last thing they would ever do is take her advice, if she put it out there that they should drop Lord doofus and they did it would look like they valued her opinion. Just a thought. To be honest, I’m starting to enjoy Biden unhinged...it’s representative of the liberal mind.
Bingo,the money quote.
I do not think that Biden is stupid. He has been protected for decades by the MSM, and now with the new media he cannot be protected anymore.
I suspect that Biden is well above average intelligence, but to make lots of public appearances and not make gaffes, you have to be in the upper .01% of intelligence if your basic beliefs are running in gaffeland.
Biden is likely just in the upper 1 percent of intelligence of the general population, about like the normal high school valedictorian. I think Palin is in that upper .01 percent, or better. She is brilliant.
You never were sure with Goldwyn.
One of my favorites of his was, "Well, if it comes to that, include me out."
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