The cover for the latest National Review caught my eye.

I’m a little curious to read it, but have a gut feeling it would make hugely disappointing reading.  I see a review which PROBABLY would match my reaction.

In polemical writing, we see the equivalent of this approach in Jonah Goldberg’s current National Review cover story on Vice President Joe Biden. The headline: “Big &#%!ing Joker.”
The approach is to take one unfortunate aspect of the Biden persona—his tendency to blurt out unfortunate pronouncements—and hammer away at it over and over until he is reduced to a caricature. Then we can all laugh at him endlessly while ignoring whatever attributes kept him in the U.S. Senate for 36 years, elected by his state six times.
The Buzz does not carry water for Vice President Biden or any other politician. And Goldberg isn’t wrong to suggest that “Biden-speak” is characterized by the use of “the utmost superlative and the exaggeratedly hyperbolic.” But Biden’s Senate career included much more than that, and any serious profile of the man would at least nod in that direction.

Hm.  Biden, I guess, got away with some scrutiny — in the area of late night joke telling — by dent of McCain’s choice for a running mate — the indefensible Sarah Palin.  (Sorry Palin fans.)  I half imagine we can get something somewhere if we make a moral equivalence and he argues about media treatment of Quayle, or something.  BUT… the thing is… here is what is available online right now:

The word “literally” has taken a beating in the Age of Biden. The vice president’s speeches are “literally” festooned with “literally”s, like hundreds of tethers to the hot-air balloon that is his head. But let’s give the poor word some smelling salts and ask it to get back in the ring for a moment.

There was an Age of Cheney.  There is no Age of Biden.  Maybe he sits somewhere just past Hubert Humphrey in influence under his role of Vice President, and his record there may be substantial enough to warrant a critical examination, but there is a reason that public barely remembers he is there.  It’s a little hard to imagine how one can get worked up about the man, but kudos to the National Review and Jonah Goldberg, I suppose.

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