“Pure self interest, Jay,” Biden responded. “If it fails, I’m dead.”

According to the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire, that is how our strangely silver-and-splintered tongued VICE President signed off on a call with Governors, who are shortly obliged to report how many jobs were created OR SAVED owing to their state’s cut of the Bailout Bonanza pie.

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2009/09/24/biden-on-stimulus-never-thought-it-would-work-this-well/ 

Y’know what?  From his lips to God’s ears.  It’s about time failed executives start falling on their swords.  What else would a man of Honor do if he is responsible for, ultimately, human wreckage on a grand scale but take his OWN life?  There is Biblical pardon and secular poetry in it.

But not so fast, relegating Biden’s latest linguistic loopiness to the JOE BIDEN GAFFES department, which is the very FIRST auto-option that pops up after generic JOE BIDEN on a Google search of Joe Biden.  Quelle embarrassing.

I think we are not so fortunate that Joe Biden or many other disgraced executives WILL fall on their swords.  I think the American economy can and almost certainly will get steadily and increasingly worse . . . and I think Biden and Obama will be right there on the re-election campaign trail, with more excuses and more promises.  They will unapologetically preach transparency and accountability.

It seems not unlikely that holding politicians’ feet to the fire is a first step in fighting fire with fire.  To wit, let us rake over this v.p./governor phone call with a finer-toothed comb.  The kind that makes the lice fall out.  So we can dig for the ticks.

I would call out the GLARING insensitivity of a man who is not only out of harm’s way but, for all practical purposes, REGALLY out of harm’s way AND positioned among those who send others off to die.  Spare me about his son.  And know that I am ready to POUNCE on the nepotism thing.  Are you kidding me?  Biden’s son, McCain’s son, the Clintons’ daughter . . . Jenna Bush is married to a Karl Rove protégé, fer cryin’ out loud.  Rand Paul, too.  Ridin’ his daddy’s coattails.  Family Dynasties are bad enough in Society, they are anathema in Government.

FIRST:  Joe Biden, second in command in the United States of America, is cavalier – nay, JOCULAR – in tossing the word/concept of Death around.  Duly noted.  Small wonder, then, that Dance Your Ass Off! and triple mocha frappuccinos are percolating right along against a backdrop of perpetual war.  Wanker.

NEXT:  Joe Biden is a lawyer, FORMER USED CAR SALESMAN, and longtime, longwinded bureaucrat.  Not a very good lawyer, I could guess, in light of his Plagiarism history.  My countrymen are notorious for their short memories and attention spans, but I am here to argue that Plagiarism speaks VOLUMES about both intellect and character.  TWO episodes of Plagiarism has Joe If-It-Fails-I’m-Dead Biden to his . . . debit.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/08/joe_bidens_plagiarism_problem.html

WHY is this faux-cool veep of modest intellect and immodest mouth overseeing the expenditure of SEVEN HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN BILLION DOLLARS of TARP funds?  Seven hundred and eighty seven trillion dollars looks like this:  $787,000,000,000.  Joe Biden.  Interesting, though, about his used car salesman stint, and how Used Cars have featured in the Bailout Bonanza.

It is also interesting — in an ewww kind of way — to learn that Big Spender Biden is himself a cheapskate with charitable contributions.  His release of ten years of tax records revealed that, with annual earnings exceeding $200,000, Joe & Jill Biden gave of themselves on the order of TWO DOLLARS PER WEEK in charitable contributions.

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2008/09/biden-releases.html

THIRD:  From what PLANET does Joe Biden look down upon us? 

“In my wildest dreams, I never thought it would work this well,” [Biden] said. “Thank you, thank you.”

“What you guys are doing is having an impact on the economy…knock wood,” said Biden, punctuating it with the sound of knocking ostensibly on a wooden surface.

If things are working so well and the governors are positively impacting the economy, what’s the phone call about?  Are we to understand that Joe Biden basically doesn’t know WHAT the states are doing with the money?  I’ve been driving around this country for the past three years and, on the ground – the part that the Joe Bidens fly over – things are getting WORSE, not better.

Which segues to,

ANOTHER THING:  I would draw the attention of my gullible and forgetful countrymen to the oh-so-lenient measure of “jobs created or saved.”  It is as NOTHING to simply not fire people, funnel billions of bailout bucks wherever, and declare that jobs were saved.  I am left to conclude that oversight of the $787,000,000,000 TARP spending plan that was crammed down the American taxpayers’ throats approximates parents departing on a year-long, round-the-world tour by giving their teenagers blank checks, a credit card with unlimited credit, and an admonition not to spend it foolishly or all in one place.

FIFTH:  When asked how certain governors were chosen to participate in the telephone forum (in which Joe Biden “allowed” four questions), Joe The Comic Biden replied, “I’m not sure how we picked the governors…except that Jim Douglas is the chairman of the National Governors Association and O’Malley is Irish.”  The WSJ reports that Biden, curiously, TWICE told the group that he is Irish.

I’m Irish, too, and I am offended.  If the American VICE President – the one who dreamed up Drug Czar and whose druggie daughter got off scott free – is not smart enough to recognize that these are not joking matters, he should at least make GOOD jokes.  Irish humor, my ass.

SIXTH, LAST & NOT LEAST:  Biden refused Governor Nixon’s request for “a bit more time to fact-check job numbers before they are released to the public.”  Not to worry, said Joe The Economist Biden.  The TARP Czar elaborated by saying he knows that the information is “not going to be perfect.”

Could we possibly set the bar any lower? 

This would be laughable, if any of it were funny.