Yesterday, Vice President Joe Biden insulted the working class in front of a crowd in New Hampshire with this absurd declaration:
“Your job as president is to promote the common good. That doesn’t mean the private equity guys are bad guys. They are not,” Biden said. “But that no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber.
And, by the way, there are a lot of awful smart plumbers.”
Oh, and by the way, Mr. Vice President, you’re an arrogant, out of touch elitist who backed a teleprompter-addicted community organizer with zero experience — so you’re less qualified to speak about experience than President Obama is qualified to speak about avoiding launching your political career in the living room of a domestic terrorist.
Can you imagine the uproar if the exact same thing was said during a campaign speech made by a Vice President with an “R” after his name? Say, someone with the last name Palin or Quayle? The narrative of an incumbent out-of-touch with everyday Americans as they struggle in a failed economy would probably last a full week and be repeated ad nauseum straight through to election day.
In the case of Politico (as you can see in the link provided above) — that unofficial web-branch of MSNBC –simply tossed it over to Joe the Plumber and then wrote a large feature piece this morning meant to merely warn the Obama campaign to get a leash on this guy.
Since the day Obama chose Slow Joe as his running mate, the media has chosen only to dutifully report his gaffes as opposed to allowing those gaffes to define him. Alternately, this is the same media that used the smallest of reasons to unfairly peg Palin, Quayle, and George W. Bush as idiots the moment the spotlight hit them.
And let us never forget Politico’s Jonathan Martin’s attempt to smear Texas Governor Rick Perry as “‘Dumb” on day one.
What I would like to know — and maybe the media could ask — is who exactly does the Vice President consider qualified for the presidency. If it’s not a self-made millionaire with private sector experience and a full term as governor, or a member of the working class who keeps our world turning — who then? Lemme guess: radical community organizers with no private sector experience, no executive experience, a twenty-year mentoring relationship with a creepy racialist preacher, and a failed record as president.
Good answer, Slow Joe. You come up with that yourself?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC