Meet the real Joe Biden: Vice-President Plonker

It has become fashionable to blame Sarah Palin for John McCain’s election defeat. Sure, say Washington insiders, Palin invigorated the conservative base — add contemptuous sneer — but she alienated the independents and undecideds. The God-fearing mother-governor of Alaska was not fit for high office. Her television performances were an international embarrassment. In choosing Palin as his vice-presidential candidate, McCain proved that he was over-impulsive, cynical, foolhardy.

All true to an extent. It should be recognised, however, that Senator Joseph Biden, the man who will now be sworn in as vice-president in January, is just as disastrous a public figure as Sarah Palin. In fact, he might be worse.

At times during the campaign, the two vice-presidential candidates seemed to be vying to outdo each other in a stupidity contest. The six-term Senator used his experience to come out on top. She didn’t know what the Bush Doctrine was; he confessed that Hillary Clinton would make a better vice-president than him. She could only name one Supreme Court decision. But he said that the most important issue facing the middle class was ‘as Barack says, a three-letter word: Jobs. J-O-B-S. Jobs.’ Nobody could match Biden’s howler at a rally in Missouri, when he called out to State Senator Chuck Graham, a wheelchair-bound paraplegic, saying: ‘Stand up Chuck! Let ’em see ya!’

Obama cannot claim that he was not warned. The press has long known about the ‘gaffe machine’ Senator from Delaware. Last year, Biden found himself grovelling to the liberal establishment after he said of Obama: ‘I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.’ (Italics mine).