and counting down until he put his foot into his mouth

but it looks like it has already happened.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/01/21/biden-takes-shot-roberts-flubbing-presidential-oath/

Quote :

"Vice President Biden took a stab at Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday, one day after the chief justice flubbed the oath of office that President Obama was to recite at his inauguration. Biden was to swear in senior executive staff at a White House ceremony after having already given the oath to newly confirmed Cabinet secretaries. When Obama reminded him that he had only done the one group and hadn't done the second yet, Biden quipped, "My memory is not as good as Chief Justice Roberts." The slap was directed at the Supreme Court chief, who a day earlier had to recite to Obama the 35-word oath of office, which Obama was to repeat back to him. Unlike his predecessor, Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Roberts -- perhaps unwisely -- chose to forego a note card with the oath. When he started to say the second portion of the quote "... that I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States," he instead put faithfully at the end of the sentence. Obama, who apparently had memorized the oath, looked at Roberts, who then realized his mistake and repeated that portion of the oath correctly. Obama then repeated the oath in the incorrect order. His presidency is unaffected, however. In the unlikely event he'd be challenged as president, the case ultimately would end up in Roberts' court."

The video is priceless. VPB and PBO are at the podium, neither know what is going on, until PBO tells VPB that he will be swearing in the new staffers. VPB makes the above remark, at which point PBO looks at him as if to say, "Hey jackass, drop that 5H!t" and taps him on the elbow. VPB freezes, and recovers about 30 seconds later.

I may not like PBO much, but VPB is just an IDIOT, and it was classic to see PBO's response.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7fsf8b1PcM&eurl=http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2009/01/22/joe-biden-making-jokes-irritating-obama/&feature=player_embedded

1/23/2009 2:03:52 AM

i think we all can agree, dem or repub, that joe biden is a fucking moron

1/23/2009 2:22:59 AM

i think the reason no one ever cares about his almost constantly putting his foot in his mouth is that he is clearly not a moron

1/23/2009 7:17:52 AM

On an only mild tangent, there is no excuse for Roberts messing that up. Period.

1/23/2009 7:21:26 AM

I thought it was pretty funny. Barack must have just thought it was too soon.

1/23/2009 7:56:18 AM

for someone who is as reserved as Obama is, that was the look of pure rage.

1/23/2009 8:19:57 AM

god damn dude he looked pissed. i'm not sure he should get his panties in a wad and show it that badly. He'll learn to hopefully keep it in check. He should just stay cool and then smack down Biden later after the press conference....

One thing's for sure, I bet he's a peach when he's pissed off.

1/23/2009 9:16:11 AM

He didn't look that pissed off. He just wasn't going to laugh b/c then everyone would be up his ass about that also.

1/23/2009 9:18:32 AM

I'm admittedly not the biggest Obama fan, but you have to respect his game face and how organized and confident he comes across. That's why I'm surprised he chose such a fuck-up as his VP, it doesn't fit with his personality style very well.. But maybe that's why he did choose him, the contrast between the two makes Obama look that much more in charge.

1/23/2009 9:23:32 AM

Quote :

"for someone who is as reserved as Obama is, that was the look of pure rage. "

1/23/2009 9:26:49 AM

I like Joe Biden. A political leader who isn't afraid to be a smart ass and call people out on their shit. If he had run in the primaries I seriously would have voted for him over Barak and Hillary.

1/23/2009 12:28:44 PM

^ Biden has MUCH more confidence than intelligence. He was the Macaca guy, right?

Quote :

"i think we all can agree, dem or repub, that joe biden is a fucking moron"

True, but i'd rather have him than Palin, by a WIDE margin. Palin would have set the republican party back 20 years if McCain had won.

1/23/2009 12:56:46 PM

Biden is not a moron, he's just got chronic foot n mouth disease

1/23/2009 1:11:22 PM

^^Biden was not the Macaca guy. That's George Allen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r90z0PMnKwI

1/23/2009 1:14:31 PM

Yeah, I'm a Republican, but I have respect for Biden. Sure, he probably talks five seconds longer than he should on most given days, but the man is both intelligent and calls it like it is. He's a good pair with Obama, the attack dog for the hope machine.

It is embarrassing, but it seems like Obama was probably trying to say the oath at a different rhythm from Roberts (more words at a time type of thing) and this ended up tripping up the Chief Justice. I don't think it'll be a complete waste though: I think of it more like how a groom trips over his vows on his wedding day.

1/23/2009 1:28:06 PM

^It would be more like the priest/preacher/rabbi/judge/ship captain tripping up.

[Edited on January 23, 2009 at 2:01 PM. Reason : can ship captains still do weddings?]

1/23/2009 2:00:36 PM

Cheif Justice Roberts had one and only one job that day.

to swear in the new president.

and he fucked it up.

an inexcusable gaffe. and far worse than anything Biden did in the OP

1/23/2009 2:07:01 PM

Not that any of this matters, but honestly Obama rushed the 'I BHO swear' part a bit....and then in turn the Roberts guy flubbed the next part. Tit for tat, they just tripped up on one another, no matter.

I still don't see what all the big deal about this is.

1/23/2009 2:48:04 PM

Joe "Rhetorical Flourishes" Biden

1/23/2009 3:24:18 PM

Yeah, big deal. JR misspoke, JB cracked a joke, BHO didn't think it was funny, and Republicans are all in a big circle jerk.

1/23/2009 3:28:47 PM

Quote :

"Joe sometimes engages in rhetorical flourishes."

--Barack Obama

1/23/2009 3:39:26 PM

That video was great, always fun to see that kind of stuff on film.

So would you guys rather all politicians to be robots with no screw ups or wit? While I didn't support Bush, I sure enjoyed many a laugh at his "rhetorical flourishes". God knows that both the current Pres and VP are 10x the speaker that Bush ever was anyway...

1/23/2009 5:22:09 PM

Quote :

"If he had run in the primaries I seriously would have voted for him over Barak and Hillary."

(he did run in the primaries, you could have voted for him)

Quote :

"i think we all can agree, dem or repub, that joe biden is a fucking moron"

and no, he is not a moron.

have you ever seen an interview with him?

he's a smartass (and that's not the best trait in a politician all the time), but he's not a moron

[Edited on January 23, 2009 at 5:28 PM. Reason : .]

1/23/2009 5:27:15 PM

^Biden dropped after the Iowa Caucus. So if you consider that a primary, he was in one. Its not like I had the opportunity to vote for him in NC 4 months later

1/23/2009 5:35:29 PM

pretty sure he was on the ballot. pretty sure i thought about voting for him, but didn't because i knew it would be close between obama and hillary.

1/23/2009 5:43:16 PM

^but what would be the point of wasting your vote on a guy who already dropped out?

1/23/2009 5:45:25 PM

there wouldn't be. but i was wrong anyway. gravel was on there. not biden.

1/23/2009 5:46:20 PM

plenty of people vote for candidates who are on the ballot, yet have no chance in hell of ever winning.

Libertarians will back me up on this.






FTR, in 2004 I caucused for Howard Dean in WA State, long after he had zero chance of winning. My rationale was to support him (even if only symbolically) for his initiating of high-profile attacks on the BushCo Hegemony when no one else of his influence had the balls to do so.

Also, I have a low-level, but fundamental distrust of John Kerry. His complete rejection of his own miltary service as a 70's activist, then the later embrace of it when it became politically expedient really rubbed me the wrong way.








[Edited on January 23, 2009 at 6:33 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2009 6:23:21 PM

Voting for a 3rd party candidate who is still running is not the same as voting for any candidate who already said 4 months previous "I am no longer seeking this office"

1/23/2009 6:28:10 PM

Quote :

"I like Joe Biden. A political leader who isn't afraid to be a smart ass and call people out on their shit. If he had run in the primaries I seriously would have voted for him over Barak and Hillary. "

So you liked Dick Cheney then, right?

1/23/2009 6:30:40 PM

Did anyone see that Ron Paul garnered 2% of the popular vote in Montana for the general election? The closest third party candidate who was actually running for President was Nader, and he received less in all 47 states where he was on the ballot.

I lawled.

1/23/2009 6:30:45 PM

your ability to reinterpret vague statistics is impressive.

because not only is Montana one of the most populous states, its citizens' demographics are an exact microcosm of the entire nation.

1/23/2009 6:36:24 PM

Perot had 19% of the national popular vote in 1992.

1/23/2009 6:40:53 PM

and gave the presidency to bill clinton, praise Jesus

1/23/2009 6:41:34 PM

^^^
Ron Paul was not running for president in the general election, right?

1/23/2009 6:58:57 PM

woodfoot laying the smackdown

1/23/2009 7:10:52 PM

Perot's votes alone did not shift the election to Bill Clinton. Nearly all political scientists agree that Perot siphoned almost as many votes from people who would have supported Clinton as those who would have supported George H.W. Bush.

IOW, if Perot's votes would have had been allocated instead to either Bush or Clinton, according to the voter's preference, that Clinton still would have won although not by as large a margin.

one might argue, however, that Perot's incessant hammering "Its the Economy Stupid", helped shift public sentiment further away from Poppy Bush long before the election. Of course, this sort of argument can not be proved or disproved.



[Edited on January 23, 2009 at 7:25 PM. Reason : ]

1/23/2009 7:23:15 PM

I would never consider Perot a vote stealer or an election slider. He was a legit candidate as shown by the huge support he got from the American people. There have been major party candidates, both democrat and republican (and whig when they were relevant), who have received less than 20% of the popular vote.

1/25/2009 2:11:54 AM

third-party candidates have only one of two possible effects on any national election:

(1) vote stealer

or

(2) irrelevant


Perot was widely believed, at the time, to be #1. In hindsight, it turned out he was just another #2



Third parties have no other place in U.S. Electoral Politics. But we've been down this road before.

1/25/2009 3:01:44 AM

Quote :

"There have been major party candidates, both democrat and republican (and whig when they were relevant), who have received less than 20% of the popular vote."

care to share the examples you're referring to?

i'd actually love to know that for future trivia competitions

1/25/2009 5:35:35 AM

Quote :

"I was going to make a thread about Joe Biden "

...but I eated it?

1/25/2009 9:42:05 AM

I was wrong when I said less than 20, but here's a few that hovered around the 25 mark, which is still pretty close to Perot's 19:

Charles Pinkney (Federalist) lost to Thomas Jefferson in 1804, 25%

Millard Fillmore (Whig) lost to James Buchanan in 1856, 22%

Former Presidents Roosevelt and Taft both lost to Woodrow Wilson in 1912, 27% and 23% respectfully

John W. Davis (Democrat) lost to Calvin Coolidge in 1924, 28%

There were multiple years where parties were split giving each individual candidate less than 20% of the vote, but those don't really count since combined the party would have been in the 40's or higher (the Whigs once sent 4 candidates at the same time).

[Edited on January 25, 2009 at 4:52 PM. Reason : sp]

1/25/2009 4:51:07 PM

Quote :

""I was going to make a thread about Joe Biden ""

but the jokes belong in Chit Chat

1/25/2009 9:59:25 PM

Obama had the Kermit the Frog smirk in that video

1/25/2009 10:40:13 PM

so what i see there is that the lowest popular vote % for a major party candidate was millard filmore

i can remember that

i love making fun of millard fillmore, and this is just one more thing to talk about

1/25/2009 11:56:00 PM

There were Democrats and Whigs in other years with lower numbers but only because there were multiple tickets on the national ballot. The Dems sent 3 I think against Lincoln and the Whigs were split 4 ways right before the party disappeared for good.

1/26/2009 8:08:57 PM