The American Spectator : Joe Being Joe

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Joe Being Joe

By W. James Antle, III from the November 2009 issue

Our vice president is fairly certain his time has not yet come. From our November issue.

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LEARNING TO BE DEFERENTIAL to his new boss has "been the hardest part" of becoming vice president, Biden said to the Politico. "I don't know how to explain it, but I hope I'm getting better at it. Because I'm confident the other part is really working well. I am really satisfied with and actually excited about my ability to be value-added and to be involved in this." The same story quoted an unnamed senior Obama aide as saying Biden "is always prepared to be the skunk at the family picnic" -- though only to "make sure we are as intellectually honest as possible," of course.

There's one area where Biden's musk-spraying at the White House picnic has been particularly well advertised: the internal debate over the war in Afghanistan. When the president came out in favor
of sending more troops, Biden, according to New Republic senior editor Michael Crowley, "urged the president to consider a narrow counterterrorism mission." Crowley attributes Biden's shift from -- liberal hawk to latter-day realist to some ill-fated meals with Afghan president Hamid Karzai, but acknowledges that the vice president's much-publicized shift suits his desire to be seen as the antithesis of Cheney: "a devil's advocate in policy debates who tries to ensure that hard questions don't go overlooked" -- or, more importantly, that hard power is used less frequently.

Public discussions of the vice president's deep thoughts on foreign policy also help keep alive his Beltway image as Joe Biden, the seasoned statesman. That's no easy task when Biden's predominant public image is, as TAS online contributor David Bass put it, "the gaffe czar." During the campaign, Biden's oddball comments could be drowned out in the constant media focus on Sarah Palin. Now his foot-in-mouth syndrome plays out for the entire world to see.

Consider one of Biden's main assignments: selling the American people on the fiscal stimulus package, chiefly by reassuring them that the money was being well spent. In a June conference call with reporters, Biden recited the White House talking point that the massive, unfunded expenditure had "created or saved" 150,000 jobs. But when Jonathan Riskind of the Columbus Dispatch asked him to back those numbers up, Biden demurred.

"I'm sorry, I'm not an economist," Biden replied. "My background is foreign policy and the Constitution." Although outranking even the Obama administration's "stimulus czar" as an over-seer of how the funds are spent, Biden said, "I'm a little above my pay grade here as I try to explain in more detail how they count spinoff effects of actual jobs created." Concerning the methodology -- to which he insisted "there has been no challenge" -- Biden could say little more than, "It's complicated."

In February, Biden said of the stimulus, "If we do everything right, if we do it with absolute certainty, there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong." The president and some of his aides reacted to Biden's comment like bemused Hill staffers who had heard "Joe being Joe." Confronted with the remark at a White House press conference, Obama replied, "I don't remember exactly what Joe was referring to. Not surprisingly." David Axelrod responded to a similar question by CNN's Wolf Blitzer by saying, "Well, I don't know -- I don't know exactly about what that math was."

The public relationship between Obama and Biden seems cordial. "Joe Biden is a guy who speaks his mind. Barack Obama knew that when he chose him for vice president," Axelrod once explained to NPR. "It's one of the reasons he wanted him, because he knew he'd be thoroughly candid. Now sometimes that's a trait that gives you a little heartburn." But sometimes the president's heartburn shows. When Biden decided to rap Chief Justice John Roberts's flubbing of the presidential oath of office while swearing in senior staffers, Obama was visibly displeased. There were later conflicting reports about whether Biden called Roberts to apologize.

The administration has had to "clarify" Biden comments about the U.S. position on the Russia-Georgia conflict and a possible Israeli strike against Iran. (Biden was more pro-Georgia and pro-Israel than the president.) There was a similar need to clarify comments made in an interview by Biden's wife claiming that Joe had his pick of the vice presidency and the secretary of state's job. Gaffe-making and résumé-gilding run in the family, apparently.

BUT THE ADMINISTRATION'S HEARTBURN is sure to intensify as the midterm elections approach and Biden once again hits the campaign trail. The Democrats are on the defensive in nearly 40 traditionally Republican-leaning congressional districts they captured in the 2006 and 2008 elections. "If [the Republicans] take them back," Biden said at a fundraiser for three freshmen Democratic congressmen from Virginia, "this is the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do." Gesturing to the event's host, former Sen. Chuck Robb, Biden continued, "These guys are smart. Some of the guys Chuck and I have campaigned for are turkeys. Not all Democrats are created equal, while most Republicans are."

How did such a blowhard make it so far in American public life? Hailing from a small media market, sheltered by the Senate since he was 30 years old, Biden has been able to block out the snickering in
the background and climb slowly to the top. A November trip to Iowa has sparked rumors that he isn't done climbing yet. What others see as flaws, Biden and his admirers think of as passion.

"It seems to me that if you can speak, you're at a liability in the Democratic Party anymore [sic]," Biden told a crowd during his 1988 campaign. "It seems to me you've all become heartless technocrats!" Joe Biden can speak from the heart. Not all politicians are created equal. Not even the turkeys.

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About the Author

W. James Antle, III is associate editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/Jimantle.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (27) | Leave a comment

Marquis de Evermonde | 11.12.09 @ 6:34AM

Not posted on Joe's site yet: http://www.washingtonexaminer......63862.html

Alan Brooks| 11.12.09 @ 8:27PM

You guys are underestimating Biden as you are underestimating Obama, and you did underestimate Clinton.

DAC| 11.12.09 @ 10:56PM

Yeah - he's a real genius. C'mon, man. People were p*ssed at Bush. Obama had the press so far up his *ss that they could see light coming in his nostrils - most of them still are, although a few are starting to squirm as this crew of idiots runs the country into the ground. Anyway, keep telling yourself that, Alan. It's going to take a long time for this country to dig out of the mess being created ($1.76 trillion deficit in October!!!!!).

Alan Brooks| 11.13.09 @ 8:53PM

I've heard it all.
Clinton would never be re-elected said my solid friends-- the conservative friends-- all during '93- '95. And Clinton raped Juanita Broadderick in a black helicopter, they told me later.

Alan Brooks| 11.13.09 @ 9:46PM

See, guys, I'm too busy getting bad advice from conservative friends to get bad advice from liberal friends.
After 30 years as a futurist, the one lesson I learned was that you can't predict anything until AFTER it occurs.
Sure, that cuts both ways; I can't predict for 100 percent sure (it goes without saying) that Obama and Biden will be re-elected. But none of you know who will be president and veep in Jan of '13.
Better to learn something sooner than later; yet, very surprisingly, Gingrich, despite all his learning, has not learned what even a chump such as I learned (in Newt's case massive self-deception affected a massive mind). Newt thinks he can, by looking into his conservative futurist crystal ball, see what will happen.
Well, I look at my post-futurist deck of tarot cards and see the Dem ticket being re-elected.

I'm a conservative now, and not a neo; but rather a paleo who goes by past experience. The experiences of Clinton's re-election, his veep's almost winning the presidency in 2000, and Hillary's being SecState today are IMO indications that our worst enemies are friends who make bad predictions--
they are called false prophets.

Alan Brooks| 11.13.09 @ 10:39PM

Here's a false prophet for you, an Iranian expatriate:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2023.....on-FM-2030

Richard Baker| 11.12.09 @ 9:00AM

Been following this idiot's political career for years. My one question is: Does Delaware have an electorate that is just as stupid? After all, Biden's political career comes at the behest of his fellow home State citizens. Just wondering.

albert constantine, jr.| 11.12.09 @ 2:26PM

The short answer is "yes". Joe's machine in Delaware is part-ACORN, part pork-driven, and largely incapable of being embarassed, and the Republican establishment in Delaware has not embraced candidates willing to challenge him. It is likely, though, that the attempt to establish the seat as a dynasty might actually provoke a race between son Beau Biden an Republican moderate Mike Castle.

Appleby| 11.12.09 @ 9:19AM

Nobody who actually wants the job should be allowed to hold it.

President and Vice President should be drafted from a short list of people who prove they know what they are doing, serve one term, and go back to what they were doing before.

I know two guys on the Forbes Midas List, and one of them is currently retired (and among other things used to run a racing team) and the other (a venture capitalist currently also running a racing team, who have handled large sums of money and created and saved vast numbers of jobs. either of whom would make a better President than anybody currently "in the running" or "exploring his options" whose only qualification is that he WANTS to be President.

ncatty| 11.12.09 @ 9:40AM

His blue collar image is a joke. He was a lawyer who was elected to the Senate at age 30. I don't see any brick-laying in that resume.

Doctor Right| 11.12.09 @ 10:40AM

Mark Levin rightly referred to Biden as "the dumbest man in the Senate".

Biden is not self-aware. His out-sized ego, devoid of any real accomplishments despite his ridiculously long tenure in the Senate, prevents him from acknowledging his own limitations.

And so, he soldiers on...Like Peter Seller's Chauncy Gardner in "Being There", Biden floats from place to place, saying and doing stupid things and NEVER being called on them by the fawning media.

He wants to run for Prez in 2016? Go ahead...It will be FUN to watch, that's for sure.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.12.09 @ 10:54AM

Pray for Obama's good health!
Look at the current Presidential succession.
Joe would fall in his own mouth.
Nancy Pelosi (brrrrrrrrr!)

Rocin| 11.12.09 @ 11:20AM

But, nobody messes with Joe, right?

Joe Mama| 11.12.09 @ 1:12PM

Imagine if Sarah Palin had said "In 1929 President Roosevelt went on the television,,,"

Tim| 11.12.09 @ 2:44PM

Has he been seen attacking cars in Yellowstone?

Dixie Pixie| 11.12.09 @ 4:18PM

No
But he has been head-butting reality for so long brain damage is suspected.

stoky| 11.12.09 @ 3:06PM

Biden was copying another person's speech and it was reported that they found white-out on his computer screen.

JIM| 11.12.09 @ 3:36PM

LOL... :)

The Patriot Of all Patriots| 11.13.09 @ 4:28AM

Biden Pwns All Your Asses.

Doc| 11.13.09 @ 6:34AM

Maybe he meant to say he planned to run FROM the White House in 2016. Wouldn't be the first time Joe put his foot in his never closed pie hole.

lawyerchik1| 11.13.09 @ 10:17AM

Joe Biden is the principal reason that people will do anything and everything in their power to make sure that, as galactically inept and treasonous as he is, Obama nevertheless finishes his term. Biden is fooling himself if he thinks for one minute that anyone actually wants him to be the President of the United States; he's Obama's life insurance policy - nothing more, nothing less.

John II| 11.13.09 @ 12:51PM

Confucius say, "Boastful logophobe like balloon without tether."

Jim Anderson| 11.13.09 @ 4:43PM

One of the oddest Biden'isms' that didn't happen to be noted was a statement he made during a Boston talk radio interview during last year's campaign. The talk-host vaguely referred to Biden's '88 problems with plagiarizing both the statements and actual life history of Britain's Neil Kinnock and the troubles it caused his campaign.
Biden replied: "Well, yah know - back then I was an immature forty-six year old."
An 'immature 46 year old'!! I was listening while driving and almost swerved into the concrete abuttment at the Rt.109 overpass. I couldn't stop laughing.
Jim Anderson
anderson.james@att.net

Sam| 11.16.09 @ 7:47PM

Joe is hilarious. But let's get real- you guys are all repeating stuff everyone knows. Of course he's not a man of the people. All politicians try to portray that nonsense. Of course he plagirized. Of course he says stupid stuff. But come on, let's enjoy it. There aren't enough things we can laugh about in politics and with bumbling Bush out of office, we can only laugh at Palin and Biden!

ula | 12.20.09 @ 11:53AM

Biden was copying another person's speech and it was reported that they found white-out on his computer screen. http://www.led-lamp-manufacturer.com/

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