When Will This Guy Learn To Can It?
Joe Biden has certainly paid his dues in the gaffe department, although he is running well behind Obama since the election... in quantity, that is. And while Obama has worked hard to keep up the quality with such stunts as creating a new language (Austrian), trying to enter the White House through a window, and "57 States", Biden may have truly raised the bar this time.
To quote Elanor Clift...
Ever wonder about that secure, undisclosed location where Dick Cheney secreted himself after the 9/11 attacks? Joe Biden reveals the bunker-like room is at the Naval Observatory in Washington, where Cheney lived for eight years and which is now home to Biden. The veep related the story to his head-table dinner mates when he filled in for President Obama at the Gridiron Club earlier this year. He said the young naval officer giving him a tour of the residence showed him the hideaway, which is behind a massive steel door secured by an elaborate lock with a narrow connecting hallway lined with shelves filled with communications equipment. The officer explained that when Cheney was in lock down, this was where his most trusted aides were stationed, an image that Biden conveyed in a way that suggested we shouldn’t be surprised that the policies that emerged were off the wall. Cheney has emerged as the leading critic of the Obama administration on national security, saying the president’s policies are making America less safe, and if there’s another attack, it will be Obama’s fault. This is tough stuff, but as the architect of the Bush administration’s policies on war and torture, he has a much bigger legacy to protect than the president he helped steer onto the shoals.
Biden's office is now doing damage control claiming that "What the Vice President described in his comments was not -- as some press reports have suggested -- an underground facility, but rather, an upstairs workspace in the residence, which he understood was frequently used by Vice President Cheney and his aides,". Remember the reporter that sympathized with Gibbs having to try to explain what Biden was talking about? Are we now to believe that Biden thought that there was an upstairs door that led to an underground vault? Or should we assume that while Cheney was wisked "to an undisclosed location" he was hiding in an upstairs room in his house?
All of this leads me to revisit the question, why would Obama choose Biden as his running mate? Was this yet another security measure? We know about the extra decoy limo, but Biden could be the most effective tool in the shed. Anyone thinking of harming the Commander In Chief would have to at least give pause to consider the goofball in waiting. Somwhere in Indiana, I'm sure there is a laughing Quayle.
