The Unintended Benefit of Joe Biden's Awful Broadcast Correspondence Jokes

Joe Biden was the headline speaker at the Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner last night. And by "spoke," one means "delivered a routine," as tradition for these dinners dictates. Unfortunately, in this case, "delivered a routine" means "bombed," which Biden did. A few of the jokes were decent, a few did okay, but most fell fairly flat. Especially the second joke about Scott Brown. Yet, it produced a pretty priceless, split-second moment for anybody watching at home.

Biden's first joke about Scott Brown involved him being criticized for a lack of job creation and pointing to Scott Brown's victory in the Massachusetts special election after Ted Kennedy's death as one place where Biden had helped facilitate job creation. Meh, right? It gets worse. Biden continued to note that Brown has one of the most difficult jobs in the Senate, as he'll be replacing the sexiest man to ever serve in the Senate. Which prompted some brilliant auteur at C-Span to cut to the following image:

For the record, that's Bill O'Reilly and Jesse Jackson, sitting at the same table, completely and utterly unamused and nonplussed by how totally unfunny Joe Biden is. O'Reilly looks slightly amused at how unfunny Joe Biden is, actually. But yes: Joe Biden is so patently unfunny, even Bill O'Reilly and Jesse Jackson can come together in the middle to be seen wearing the exact same thought for one single, glorious moment of non-partisan pundit solidarity. See! Vice Presidents, sometimes good for some things.

[fkamer@villagevoice.com]