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By Stephen Green

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You Can Pick Your Friends

May 21, 2009 - 9:07 am - by Stephen Green

When President Obama picked Joe Biden as his running mate, the right laughed and the left pretended he was a great pick. Turns out we were all wrong — because if Biden’s a joke (and he is), he’s not a very funny one:

Billy BeerPresident Obama is so “distracted by his vice president’s indiscipline” that he has been forced to rebuke privately Vice President Joe Biden, according to a new book by Newsweek journalist Richard Wolffe, who interviewed Obama a dozen times.

“He can’t keep his mouth shut,” Wolffe quotes a “senior Obama aide” as saying of the gaffe-prone Biden in “Renegade: The Making of a President,” set for release June 2.

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As evidence, Wolffe reports that during the presidential transition period, Biden insulted Valerie Jarrett, one of Obama’s closest friends and confidantes. Jarrett had been considered Obama’s top choice to fill his vacated Senate seat in Illinois, but took herself out of the running just hours after Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich allegedly told a wiretapped conference call he would not heed any Obama recommendation without a payoff.

“Soon after Jarrett pulled out of consideration for the Senate seat, the senior transition team met to discuss cabinet picks,” Wolffe writes. “Biden tried to compliment Jarrett after one contribution. ‘You should be in the Senate,’ he quipped. After the meeting, as everyone returned to their offices, Obama stopped Biden to warn him not to say anything like that again. ‘It’s not funny,’ he told him.”

I’m starting to think Obama is actually worse than Carter. After all, Carter was stuck with his brother Billy through no fault of his own.

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6 Comments, 6 Threads

  1. Are you kidding me? That quip is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day…

  2. 2. Jeff

    Ah, yes, Biden is a clown, but you know what? I love the fact that he just spouts off. Everyone else in politics is so damn controlled — Obama being among the worst — that you feel like you’re listening to a scripted robot. Now if Biden actually had brains and spouted off stuff like, “I’m buying gold given what we’re doing to the dollar!”, well, he’d be USEFUL and AMUSING. Sadly, he’s only good for a laugh.

    Jeff

  3. 3. Fred Beloit

    “…he[Obama] has been forced to rebuke privately Vice President Joe Biden…”

    ““He can’t keep his mouth shut,” Wolffe quotes a “senior Obama aide” as saying of the gaffe-prone Biden in “Renegade: The Making of a President,” set for release June 2.”

    I thought Biden was rebuked “privately”. This is privately?

  4. 4. rbj

    You know, if Dear Leader had actually spent some time in the Senate he’d have probably discovered what Joe Biden is.

  5. 5. mojo

    I actually have a can of “Billy” beer. Thought it would appreciate in value.

    Hey, I get it wrong occasionally.

  6. 6. McGehee

    Boy, aren’t we lucky we didn’t get that Palin chick as vice-president?

    /yellow-dog Dem