As tough as it might be to make fun of President Obama, there is a ray of hope: Vice President Joe Biden is still the one-man gaffe machine. Those who thought the office of the vice-presidency might sober him up and curb his tongue — forget about it. He’s already mocking Chief Justice John Roberts over the botched oath of office for Obama. And if insulting the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court isn’t enough, Biden mentioning the flub is a delightful reminder that Barack Obama did his own mangling of the oath, too:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2T3T39dpbs[/youtube]

This is what Joe Biden does. This is what Joe Biden is.

The man cheerfully lets his mouth runneth over. There are literally decades of Biden’s verbal bombs, but here are some of the best of just the last campaign season:

He greeted one state lawmaker as an old friend and called for him to stand up — not realizing that his “old buddy” was confined to a wheelchair.

He described his eventual running mate as follows: “I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and clean and a nice-looking guy.” Why, I bet some of Biden’s best friends are black.

He talked about how President Roosevelt went on TV to reassure the nation after the stock-market crash of 1929 — almost three years before Roosevelt was elected and about a decade before the first commercial television station went on the air.

On the campaign trail, he told an audience, “Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me.” This dovetails quite elegantly with Mrs. Biden stating that Biden was given the choice of the vice presidency or the secretary of state slot — his choice meaning that Hillary got Biden’s castoff.

That’s just a few. Bidenisms are legion.

The one blessing here is that now Biden is out of the Senate and holds what is historically the least powerful position in government, only possessing whatever power the president chooses to imbue to the holder  — and Obama doesn’t strike me as the sort who would let a lot of real power slip out of his hands.