You would have thought Joe Biden would have learned by now. When in a public space surrounded by cameras, thou shalt speak nothing but inanities.
The US vice-president probably wishes he had followed that script on Saturday while glad-handing in Milwaukee. Things took a turn for the worse when he walked into a shop and asked, “Where’s the ice-cream?”, only to be told it traded in frozen custard.
Then it got really bad. Biden engaged the owner in conversation. “What do we owe you?” he asked, licking a cone. “Lower our taxes and we’ll call it even,” the owner replied.
Leave it there, Joe! Don’t do it!
But no, Biden just had to answer back, for the benefit of the cable news channels. “Why don’t you say something nice instead of being a smartass all the time? Say something nice,” he snorted.
According to the owner, Biden later whispered in his ear: “Just kidding!” But by then the damage was done — another Bidenism had been added to the lengthening litany of his gaffes. To be fair to the vice-president, he’s famous for them. Always has been. Before Barack Obama chose him as his presidential running mate, he was warned to beware Biden’s loose tongue. Obama had even been the subject of one such gaffe. At the start of the primary campaign Biden called him the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean”. When Biden made his first public appearance beside Obama in public, he butchered Obama’s name no fewer than three times. He called him Barackal Bama, Barack Obaman and Barack America.
And on and on, including the memorable occasion when Biden cheerfully pointed to a man in the crowd and said “Stand up, Chuck, let ’em see ya,” before realising that Chuck was sitting in a wheelchair.
In Biden’s favour, he has taken the vice-presidency back to its traditional role of doing precious little besides saying stupid things. Anyone want to return to the model employed by Dick Cheney, who rarely made a gaffe but did run the country and introduced torture and Guantánamo?
In any case, what’s wrong with speaking your mind? Which would be preferable: a Congress full of inanities toeing the party line, or a vice-president who calls a smartass a smartass? – guardian.co.uk