Published: April 15, 2011

Aside from plaguing my childhood memories with its haughtiness, the story of the Princess and the Pea, in which a lonely young prince decides that he will find his true love when he meets the girl with an utter lack of pain tolerance, also has a place in American politics. For as long as politicians have been public figures, they’ve been scrutinized until they belong to one of two camps. There are those worthy of their high honors, as was the unassuming girl who finally proved herself worthy of royalty by waking up “black and blue all over.” Then there are those who become political punching bags, as did all the rest of the trampy lot who spent the night atop that luxurious pile of mattresses in blissful slumber. Most recently, this strategy has taken its toll on the President and Vice President; the former gets to enjoy his ascension to the throne, while the latter is a hack who knows not what he does.

Such pairings have been especially transparent in the last decade or so of politics. Take, for example, the austere and commanding Secretary of State Colin Powell, when compared to the then-Commander-in-Chief, the bumbling and perpetually smirking Bush junior, who once said, “I’ve been in the Bible every day since I’ve been president.” Or the ill-prepared Alaska Governor Palin, who is often seen as the downfall of the well-established Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign. But although Vice President Joseph Biden continues the time-honored tradition of the political rogue, he is far more of a scapegoat than he is political poison.

Among his most publicized slips of the tongue, Biden’s long list of word vomit includes mistakenly introducing President Barack Obama as “Barack America,” asking someone offscreen during a live broadcast if he knew the “Web site number,” and the less-endearing remark that, “You cannot go into a 7-11, or a Dunkin Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” The Oscar Madison to Obama’s Felix Unger, Biden is a media darling who delights both friends and enemies with his frequent gaffes.

And yet Biden’s oft-recorded bloopers are mild compared to some of his heavy-hitting predecessors. Vice President Dan Quayle, whose eponymous “Quaylisms” have famously included “Republicans understand the importance of bondage between a mother and child,” and “The Holocaust was an obscene period in our nation’s history. I mean in this century’s history. But we all lived in this century. I didn’t live in this century.” Then of course, there was President George W. Bush, whose verbal mishaps were so frequent that they became tiresome. His finest moments, as you may remember, include strange attempts at empathy such as, “I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family,” and, “Rarely is the question asked, ‘Is our children learning?’” Then there were more wince-worthy statements like, “Too many good docs are getting out of the business. Too many OB-GYNs aren’t able to practice their love with women all across this country.”

Biden’s most recent slip-up is his televised dropping of the F-bomb as he congratulated the President on the passage of the health care bill. “This is a big fucking deal,” said Biden. Almost immediately, though not maliciously, the event went viral on the Internet. Later, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted, “And yes Mr. Vice President, you’re right…” Already, Biden’s remark has inspired T-shirts that read, “Healthcare Reform is a BFD.”

Not to be outdone, the fiscally conservative Tea Party Movement, which has come out against the health care bill, has managed to one-up Biden in its passionate but grammatically unstable campaigning fervor. To my dual delight and horror, they are creatures just as visual as they are auditory, and their particular mastery of the English language, which has been well-documented on the Internet, has been dubbed Teabonics. To shed some insight the dialect, it is perhaps most aptly captured in such messages as “No Mas Illegal Alliens R Fugitives From Justice!” and “Don’t Mortage My Childs Future.”

Even before the Vice President’s live F-bomb, however, there was the previous Sunday’s episode of “The Simpsons.” Featuring an uplifting visit from the First Lady, the writers couldn’t resist a small jab at the Vice President. When the hapless Principal Skinner tries to intercede on Michelle’s instructions to Lisa’s classmates, the First Lady sternly responds, “I’LL tell them what the lesson is.” Superintendent Chalmers explains apologetically, “He’s our Joe Biden,” to which she replies, “Understood.”

Ouch. Considering that, in the long history of “The Simpsons,” Skinner is the same guy who still lives at home with his crotchety mother, is the laughingstock of his students as well as superiors and has been constantly thwarted by the same 10-year-old nemesis for over two decades, that’s quite a burn. But in the short time that Biden has been Vice President, he’s been assigned the position of the fall guy, while Obama gets to play the Bond-esque alpha dog. Capitalizing on his sobriety, the media depicts Mr. President as a stone cold fox, the effortlessly cool leader whom New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd has compared to Mr. Darcy, the dashing hero of “Pride and Prejudice.” And while Obama’s image remains that his loftiness is what makes him worthy of running the country, his second-in-command is like every other contestant who failed to find the pea, a commoner who embarrasses himself when given a test of merit.

Having fallen short of that high-brow high bar, Joe Biden is left with being the laughable sidekick. No one gets to poke fun at Obama, so everyone takes their stabs at Biden. The day after Biden’s health care slip, comedian George Lopez declared on his show, “Every time Joe Biden is on TV, it’s like the White House Def Jam. You can’t let Joe Biden talk. ‘Put your hands together for Harry Fucking Reid!’” Considering how many other less-than-articulate politicians we’ve “let talk,” including one who now has her own show on Fox, Joe Biden is hardly the worst of the lot.