IF BIDEN WAS A REPUBLICAN, LATE NIGHT COMEDIANS WOULD MOVE IN LOCKSTEP TO MAKE THIS A RECURRING, GERALD FORD OR DICK CHENEY-STYLE JOKE: Once again, Joe Biden’s motorcade has an accident. This time, vehicle in his motorcade hits three cars in Wilmington, Delaware.
Earlier (and not necessarily a complete list!):
● “Two Secret Service employees driving along the Suitland Parkway struck and killed a man early Wednesday morning in the vehicles the agency uses to transport Vice President Joe Biden.”
—The Hill, November 11, 2009.
● “A Bernalillo County Sheriff’s deputy escorting Vice President Joe Biden’s motorcade was hit this afternoon at Gibson and Carlisle.”
—Albuquerque Journal, November 16, 2009.
● “A police car assisting Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s motorcade collided with another vehicle on the West Side of Manhattan on Tuesday as Mr. Biden was on his way to…a taping of ‘The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,’ which is recorded at a studio on 11th Avenue near West 52nd Street….Two officers and the driver of the livery cab were taken to a hospital with neck and back injuries, the police said. None of the injuries were serious.”
—The New York Times, November 17, 2009.
—NBC, February 14, 2010.
● “Part of a motorcade escorting Vice President Joe Biden was involved in a minor accident Thursday while traveling in Queens, N.Y., WNBC-TV reported. Two officers with the New York Police Department motorcycle unit sustained minor injuries during the incident and were undergoing treatment at a local hospital, according to the report. Biden was not delayed by the accident, who met with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg earlier Thursday.”
—The New York Post, August 5, 2010.
● “Joe Biden Motorcade Van Hits San Francisco Police Motorcycle.”
—SF Weekly, October 14, 2014.
● “NYPD officer injured in Vice President Joe Biden’s motorcade.”
— AP, September 11, 2015.
—WXYZ-Detroit, September 17, 2015.
As James Joyner of Outside the Beltway wrote in November of 2010 after a Forbes columnist wrote a piece satirically asking, “Strip Joe Biden of His Motorcade?” “Do I think the vice president should be stripped of his motorcade privileges? No. For one thing, I’m pretty sure Joe Biden wasn’t driving any of the cars in question, so it’s unreasonable to blame him. And, despite my general distaste for VIP motorcades and the inconveniences they pose for The Little People, there are legitimate security concerns for someone in Biden’s position. But there is something odd going on here. At very least, an investigation ought to be launched to figure out why this is happening.”
Fortunately for Biden, his boss’s administration had much more pressing scandals to cover up over the years.