Biden: The accidental fearmonger

To survive the swine flu we must all be vigilant, said the New York Daily News in an editorial. That means washing your hands, staying home if you’re sick, and, if you’re Vice President Joe Biden, keeping “your mouth shut at all times.” Asked about swine flu last week on the Today show, our loquacious new veep decided to embellish the administration’s list of rational anti-flu precautions with a few of his own. Biden happily announced that he had instructed his own family to avoid all “confined places,” including subway cars, airplanes, and school classrooms—measures that would, if followed en masse, empty the streets and destroy what’s left of our economy overnight. The Obama administration rushed to “clarify” Biden’s apocalyptic health advice, said Wesley Pruden in The Washington Times, by re-emphasizing the need for people to wash their hands. One wonders, though, how long Obama himself can resist the temptation to wash his hands of “good old Joe,” who can be counted on to say something amazingly dumb every other time he opens his yap.

That undisciplined yap is the secret of Biden’s considerable appeal, said Michelle Cottle in The New Republic. Yes, Biden is proving just as gaffe-prone a vice president as Obama’s critics had predicted. But in the long term—which is, we know, how Obama thinks—the administration considers Biden’s presence a net plus. For starters, Biden’s “gabby, let-it-all-hang-out amiability” makes him the quintessential “un-Cheney.” Clearly lacking the usual politician’s filter, he comes off as authentic and unscripted, like the garrulous neighbor who chats you up over the backyard fence. “Whether this plays out happily or ruinously remains to be seen. But that suspense is just part of the fun of watching Joe be Joe.”

Biden serves another vital function in this White House, said Gail Collins in The New York Times. He’s a perfect in-house test subject to gauge how the administration’s message is playing with everyday people. In this case, Biden’s panicky ranting about avoiding “confined places” was a clear indication that the White House was overdoing the swine-flu warnings and needed to dial them back a bit. “Give Joe a break,” said John Kass in the Chicago Tribune. “All he did was act like any average American programmed by the hysterical news coverage.” With the panic over swine flu abating, let’s hope the medical community can return to the important work of figuring out what’s wrong with Joe Biden, and that “someday, there may be a cure.”

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