The Delaware Destroyer

The American political landscape is rife with the caricatured corpses of presidents and vice-presidents. Cartoonists and comic impersonators exploit their physical characteristics, but each politician also exhibits certain behavioral ticks that, fairly or not, will define him for posterity. So Nixon, waving his arms and telling the country “I am not a crook,” only emphasized to most Americans that he was. Ford was a klutz (even though he had been an elite athlete in his day…that’s what happens when you hit a few spectators with stray tee shots, stumble down the steps from an airplane to the tarmac and start your presidency at about the same time that Chevy Chase begins his television career). Carter had lust in his heart and ran away from killer rabbits. Reagan forgot everything, including the fact that a little thing called “Iran/Contra” was being run out of a walk-in closet just a few steps away from the Oval Office. Bush Sr. never had “the vision thing.” Clinton is remembered for his predilection for late-night cheeseburgers and cigar innuendo. Gore was the stiff geek who thought he was smarter than everybody else, probably because he invented the Internet. Bush Jr. was lambasted for his Dubya-isms (“I think we can all agree, the past is over.”) and his premature flight suit fashion statement. Cheney was the misanthropic evil genius pulling puppet strings from a series of hidden bunkers. And, according to the Daily Beast, “the prevailing caricatures of Obama are solidly fixed. To the right he is a socialist, to the left a middling messiah.”

And then there’s “Botch It” Biden. As in, give Joe a simple task, he’ll botch it; let Joe speak on behalf of the administration, he’ll botch it. Generally thought of as a genial and caring guy, Biden is equally known for his gaffes, thanks in no small part to Jason Sudeikis’ sharp portrayal of the veep on “SNL.” So last week, when Biden’s publicists sent out a press release announcing that he would be visiting “Road Island” to campaign for U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse at the “Built More,” the only real surprise was that Sheldon’s last name wasn’t spelled “White House.”

Now, we know Biden doesn’t write his own press releases. No doubt his staff relied a bit too heavily on Spellcheck to produce the boilerplate. (We learned firsthand the dangers of Spellcheck long ago when one of our first editions of the software consistently replaced every reference to the word “black” with the phrase, “African American,” inspiring some truly imaginative news copy.) But the Biden mistake virus is apparently so infectious it has spread throughout his entire entourage. Just for punishment, we should make the Biden contingent come back to Rhode Island and visit the villages of Annawamscutt, Cocumscussoc and Quonochontaug while they’re here.

“Road Island” is, of course, particularly ironic, given the decrepit state of the roads in these parts. Suppose it could have been worse: i.e. “Rode Island,” as in “he rode shotgun; I rode island;” or, “Rowed Island” as an appellation for The Dinghy State. But here’s hoping Biden, who hails from the second-smallest state in the union, enjoyed his time in Little Rhody. For our part, two consecutive weeks of Delaware – or maybe we should say Della Where? – intrusions to this blog are enough to hold us for awhile. But we don’t want to leave before addressing the commenter, “Misplaced Floridian,” who posted to the WPRI blog about the “Road Island” typo:

Let’s face it…with only two electoral votes, and certain Democrat votes at that, RI isn’t worth spell checking. They’ll never misspell Florida, California, Texas or any other state that matters.

Couple o’ things “Misplaced”: First, as Rhode Islanders, we love our irrelevance. We revel in our irrelevance. Our irrelevance feeds our collective irreverence. So keep the irrelevance coming and let the Other 49 wallow in the delusion that they matter. Second, wasn’t Florida, a “state that matters,” single-handedly responsible for botching the 2000 presidential election after designing ballots with chads hanging, dangling, pregnant, pimpled and dimpled, which confused elderly Jewish residents into voting for Pat Buchanan over Al Gore, thereby setting into motion the reality of our national election being hijacked by nine people who go to work everyday wearing black robes, and politicizing the institution of the Supreme Court to such an extent that it lost all credibility with roughly half of the American populace?

Sheesh. Even Biden couldn’t botch things that badly.

This week’s question: Where in “Road Island” should we send Joe By Done?

Some possibilities:
Pee Pack
Riz Dee
Coven Tree
Egg Sitter
Roger Will Yum Spark Sue