Right Minded Online

Senator Joe Biden is a gaffe machine. He’s the gift that keeps on giving. The man who would be vice president has made some whoppers that make Dan Quayle look like Charlton Heston.

For starters, just last week in the aftermath of the mortgage crisis, Senator Biden tried to score political points by reminding the voters “When the stock market crashed, Franklin Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the princes of greed. He said, ‘look, here’s what happened.’”

Problem is, FDR didn’t have the benefit of television. He was instead famous for his fireside chats that were delivered over the radio. But more notably, you’d think that since the Democrats trot out the “worst economy since Hoover” line every election they’d actually know that Herbert Hoover was president at the time of stock market crash of 1929 — not FDR.

Speaking of people in wheelchairs, at a campaign rally earlier this month, Senator Biden instructed a man in a wheelchair to “Stand up, Chuck, so people can see you.” Oops.

Just the week before, Senator Biden illustrated the elitism of the Obama/Biden ticket when he proclaimed “All this stuff about how different Barack Obama is, they’re just not used to somebody really smart. They’re just not used to somebody who’s really well educated. They just don’t know quite how to handle it, ’cause if he’s as smart as Barack is, he mustn’t be from my neighborhood.”

Senator Biden isn’t exactly a candidate who exudes confidence, either. Back on September 11, he conceded “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend. She is qualified to be president of the United States of America. She’s easily qualified to be vice president of the United States of America. And, quite frankly, um, it might have been a better pick than me.”

And this is the man who would be second in command, or, as the cliche goes, one heartbeat away from the presidency, conceding that he isn’t the best man for the job.

Joe Biden also has a strange way of defining patriotism. In Canton, Ohio on September 18, the senator proclaimed “We want to take money and put it back in the pocket of middle-class people.” Of those who would pay more, he said “It’s time to be patriotic…time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.”

This comes from a guy whose party has rooted against its own country during a time of war, besmirched the troops, and trashes the U.S. at every opportunity. His idea of patriotism is instead to pay higher taxes.

On a recent episode of NBC’s Meet the Press, Senator Biden appealed to the 13th Century writings of St. Thomas Aquinas to cast doubt on the consistent teaching of the Catholic Church on abortion. In fact, the Catholic Church has consistently taken a pro-life position, and Senator Biden was publicly chastised by the Church for misrepresenting its position.

But the Catholic Church isn’t the only one to publicly chastise Joe Biden. Even Barack Obama, Biden’s own running mate, has dumped on the senator from Delaware. Just last week, Senator Obama criticized John McCain for his opposition to a government bailout of AIG. When it was pointed out that Senator Biden had taken the same position, Obama remarked “I think Joe should have waited, as well.”

What makes this exchange so comical is that Joe Biden has publicly chastized Obama at least twice. The Obama/Biden campaign recently ran a commercial claiming that John McCain is out of touch because he can’t even use e-mail. In fact, as a result of injuries he sustained while a POW in Vietnam, McCain has limited use of his arms and cannot use a keyboard.

Senator Biden went after his own campaign for “making fun of John McCain’s inability to use a computer,” stating “I thought that was terrible by the way,” and that “I didn’t know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it.”

And last week while making a campaign appearance, Joe Biden warned “Barack Obama ain’t taking my shotguns, so don’t buy that malarkey. If he tries to fool with my Beretta, he’s got a problem.”

And then there’s a little issue with coal. Senator Biden informed an environmentalist at a campaign rally just a few days ago ”No coal plants here in America. Build them, if they’re going to build them, over there [in China]. Make them clean. We’re not supporting clean coal.”

But the Obama/Biden campaign does support clean coal. In fact, Joe Biden is on record himself asserting “Imagine…what Barack and I can do taking that $4 billion…and investing it in coal gasification, finding out what we can do with carbon sequestration, finding out how we can burn the coal that you dig that can free us from being dependent on foreign oil countries and at the same time not ruin the environment. That’s within our capacity to do it, if you give me $4 billion I promise you, I promise you we will find the answer.”

The man who would be next in line to the presidency isn’t the sharpest knife in the box. As a voter, you’d like for your vice presidential candidate to know his history, know what his positions are, be on the same page as his running mate, and sincerely believe he is the best person for the job. Joe Biden is none of these. Senator Biden is simply an empty-suit politician who panders to whatever group he happens to be speaking to, and relies on the ignorance of others in order to score political points. At the moment, however, the candidate Joe Biden seems to be helping the most isn’t Barack Obama, but John McCain.