Seriously, why does Newsweek heart Joe Biden?

Please do read Newsweek’s mash note to the vice-president “Why Liberals Have Grown to Love Joe Biden” — provided you’re able to properly keep your gag reflex in check. There are so many embarrassing things about it, it’s hard to know where to begin. I’ll start with this:

Nearly every day, Annie Lowrey, an editor and blogger for Foreign Policy magazine, sends a photo of Vice President Joe Biden to her Twitter followers. Sometimes the photos are playful. Others show the veep in a reflective moment. And some are downright hilarious. She calls it the Daily Biden, because everyone needs their daily fix of Joe. “He looks just so delighted all the time,” Lowrey says. “I’d argue that no one—from John Adams to Dick Cheney—has ever seemed so utterly delighted to be vice president. Such enthusiasm is hard not to like.” Her Twitter followers lap up their daily dose of Biden, who Lowrey says is sort of like “everyone’s favorite uncle.”
Although the Daily Biden is just a bit of fun, the enthusiastic response it has received on Twitter is perhaps emblematic of the mainstream and liberal-media crush on the loquacious former six-term senator from Delaware.

So the mainstream media has a “crush” on Joe Biden? Is that unintentional honesty? Whatever. He’s a heartbeat away from the presidency, and should be treated with the according scrutiny — not as some dopey mascot. But let’s listen to Newsweek try and defend Biden on the merits:

Biden has been the administration’s point man on the Recovery Act, successfully leveraging his Everyman sensibility to promote its positive impact on middle- and working-class communities. Biden has taken his trademark pearly-white smile and hearty back-slapping energy to schools, factories, and town halls across the country to tout tax benefits, roads, jobs, grants, and even vaccination programs, all the while doing what he does best: making sure his message resonates with everyday folks. Although the Recovery Act remains contentious in some circles, Biden’s steadfast commitment to it has raised his stock with liberals, who, as Yglesias points out “remain very enthusiastic” about the act.

The stimulus act remains contentious “in some circles“?! A sizable majority of Americans think the stimulus has either hurt the economy or had no effect. As for Biden’s handling of the stimulus, I refer you to my column from Monday:

One of Biden’s few high-profile jobs as vice-president was being designated to oversee the stimulus in March of last year. “Around the White House we call him ‘The Sheriff’ because if you’re misusing taxpayer money, you’ll have to answer to him,” said the president.
Sheriff Biden promptly laid down the law. “We know some of this [stimulus] money is going to be wasted,” he said the following June. “Some people are being scammed already.” A fiscal Wyatt Earp Biden is not.
The logorrhea has been such an ongoing problem that the Associated Press’ White House reporter has been known to relay Biden comments with the addendum, “That’s literally the quote.”

Oh yeah, Biden’s handling of the stimulus really inspires confidence. The stimulus is rife with fraud and the White House has tried to twist itself into accounting knots to make the legislation look like it’s creating jobs. But his “steadfast commitment,” really impresses a blogger at the Center for American Progress and that’s good enough for Newsweek to justify an entire article praising Biden’s frequently embarrassing performance as vice-president.

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