Usually I find VP Joe Biden to be a pompous and self-satisfied politician. To be expected, I suppose, from a man who has been in Washington as an elected official since the age of 29 and now in his 60's. Yesterday, however, I was almost pleasantly surprised by his appearance on Meet the Press.
Biden, known for verbal gaffes though he was brought onto the Obama ticket as the voice of experience, was on point throughout the appearance. He repeated the talking points of the day on national health care reform and on the fuzzy math of the stimulus success to date. I only noticed once or twice a slap at the previous administration - "inherited" and "eight years of" being used. Six months into this administration, the public is growing a bit weary of this line of excuses.
The word of the morning for Biden was "ecometrics". He was trying to explain the numbers used to measure jobs gained by the passage of the stimulus package. He eventually admitted it was all just a guess. There is no legitimate measurement of a saved job, as the administration claims. That is jibberish. As Joe Scarborough pointed out after the Biden appearance, unemployment has risen, not fallen. It is now at 9.4% when we were told it would be at 8% if nothing was done immediately, thus the speed of the passage of the legislation that no one read.
Biden was grilled a bit by David Gregory, the host. Gregory seems to be growing into the job. He asked Biden about the motives of former VP Dick Cheney as he publicly speaks out in defense of the Bush administration. Biden said he wouldn't judge motivation. He took the high road, for a change.
The Biden interview was a pleasant surprise. I almost enjoyed listening to him.
Almost.
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