Vice President Joe Biden visited our grand old state Monday and shocked the presses.
No, he didn’t make a nation-altering announcement; he just managed to survive his appearance without revealing the location of the veep’s secret bunker or making some other Biden Blunder.
Make no mistake; We respect the office of the vice president, but if ever we’re down, we know we can find some of the current officeholder’s hilarious gaffes to cheer us up. Fortunately for us, vice presidents and vice presidential candidates have a penchant for hitting our funny bone, and it’s both painful and humorous.
Don’t have time to look up VP hilarity? We’ve got you covered.
Let’s go back a few terms to George H.W. Bush’s right-hand man, Dan Quayle.
Arizona natives, prepare to be offended.
“I love California, I practically grew up in Phoenix,” he said.
That may be worse than President Barack Obama’s mispronunciation of Tempe as “Tempeh.” Quote No. 2 from Quayle: “If we don’t succeed, we run the risk of failure.” For all you fraternity bros nodding at that one, we submit that the failure begins with that sentence.
Dick Cheney managed to keep his quotes in check for the most part.
Unlike the others vying for his office, he generally managed to keep face — no pun intended. (Well, OK, pun intended: Shooting major campaign contributor Harry Whittington in the face on a hunting trip may be the ultimate gaffe. No hard feelings, though — Whittington apologized for the ruckus.)
And though she never quite made it to the office, Sarah Palin said some pretty vice presidential things during her candidacy.
Ever wonder what publications Palin reads? As she told Katie Couric in a CBS News interview, “All of ‘em, any of ‘em that have been in front of me over all these years.” The State Press might have made it in front of Palin at some point, right? Thanks, Sarah, for our claim to fame.
If you had doubts that being close to Russia wasn’t good enough foreign policy experience, Palin’s quote from a 2008 fundraiser should assuage your doubts. “They are also building schools for the Afghan children so that there is hope and opportunity in our neighboring country of Afghanistan.” Yes, Palin can see Afghanistan from her house, too.
Unfortunately, Palin didn’t quite qualify for the ultimate gaffer position that Biden occupies. But he’s not doing too badly either.
“Look, [McCain’s] last-minute economic plan does nothing to tackle the No. 1 job facing the middle class, and it happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs,” he said while campaigning for Barack Obama. Non-math majors aspiring to hold office, never fear.
Counting to three is all you need.
That and basic knowledge of who your boss is: Biden once introduced Obama as “a man I’m proud to call my friend. A man who will be the next President of the United States — Barack America!” It must have been written in the stars. If your last name is America, there’s no way you’re not becoming president — even if your middle name is Hussein.
But as much as we’d like to harp on the second in command, it’s not easy to constantly be in the public view. When you have cameras following you around everywhere, your missteps will be recorded — and replayed over and over again. Though it might slightly dampen our faith in our leaders, we appreciate the political humor, and we’d much rather laugh at Quayle’s 1992 misspelling of potato as “potatoe” in a classroom than hear reports of politicians’ sex scandals.
So thank you, Office of the Vice President, for giving us something to laffe, L-A-F-F-E, about.
