If the prospect of Joe Biden sitting a heartbeat away from the presidency doesn't give you palpitations, you are not paying attention.
Hysterical Sarah Palin-bashers on the unhinged left and elitist right have dominated campaign press coverage and pop culture. They've ridiculed her family, her appearance and her speech patterns. They've derided her character, her parenting skills, her readiness and her intellect.
Meanwhile, the increasingly erratic, super-gaffetastic Joe Biden gets a pass. What does the guy have to do to earn the relentless scrutiny and merciless mockery he deserves? Answer: wear high heels, shoot caribou and change the "D" next to his name to an "R."
Team Obama is hammering John McCain as "erratic" in the closing days of the election campaign. There are now 615,000 Google hits and counting using the search terms "erratic McCain." Last week, The New York Times devoted an entire article to the Obama-Biden line of attack, titled "In Friendly Region, Biden Cites McCain as Erratic."
Who's erratic? Throughout the primary and general election cycles, Biden has lurched from attacking Obama as not ready for prime time ("The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training." -- September 2007) to ready to lead ("Barack Obama is ready. This is his time." -- August 2008) and back again.
This week, Biden warned America that an Obama victory would invite a dangerous global showdown between tyrants and the naif Obama. "Mark my words," Biden said Sunday at a Democratic fundraiser. "It will not be six months [after the inauguration] before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy." In a follow-up appearance, he told supporters to brace for the worst and "gird your loins."
Out of Biden's mouth, this is called candor. Out of anyone else's mouth, it would be "fear-mongering," "negative campaigning" and a "distraction."
Tooting his own horn while vandalizing his running mate's, Biden bragged: "I've forgotten more about foreign policy than most of my colleagues know." Yeah. Colleagues like that guy who had a mere 143 days of Senate experience before launching his presidential bid and choosing you to shore up his meager credibility, Joe.
In fact, Biden has spent the entire campaign questioning his running mate's judgment. Last month, he mused out loud: "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. … She is easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America, and quite frankly it might have been a better pick than me." Biden assailed the campaign's position on clean coal, openly criticized the campaign's idiotic ad attacking McCain for not using e-mail and warned the pro-gun control Obama that "if he tries to fool with my Beretta, he's got a problem."
Dan Quayle will have "POTATOE" etched on his gravestone. But how many times have late-night comedians and cable shows replayed the video of senior statesman and six-term Sen. Biden's own spelling mishap last week while attacking McCain's economic plan?
"Look, John's last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the No. 1 job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S."
Continued... |