It’s called “silly season” for a reason. There’s a presidential campaign going on.
Unfortunately, this year’s presidential campaign hasn’t included much silly at all. And may never. It seems stuck in deadly serious mode as the candidates trade applause lines without a hint of humor. Especially good humor.
But just because the campaign isn’t silly doesn’t mean that Joe Biden can be taken seriously. Far from it. Speaking of the Romney-Ryan ticket before a largely black audience the other day, he informed his listeners, “They’re going to put y’all back in chains.” That’s our vice president’s idea of elevated rhetoric. But what are you gonna do? Besides pray fervently for the good health of the president of the United States. Every administration has an embarrassment, the way every family has that one brother-in-law.
Mr. Biden is equally trustworthy on the subject of geography, telling the same Virginia audience that, with its help, Obama-Biden could carry North Carolina.
The vice president sounds like a statesman, however, when compared to Nancy Pelosi, the decidedly former majority leader of the House (for a good reason) who’s a kind of bottomless well of partisan clichés. Humorous she’s not.