WASHINGTON, D.C. Angered by a columnist’s charges that he receives more lenient media treatment than GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, Senator Joseph Biden (D-Del.) made the rounds of Sunday morning interview shows today with an aide and three squirrels to “prove the far-right has gone too far this time.”
“One was a flying squirrel, and just lunged at me!”
The claim made by National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg that Biden could appear on national television saying “Get these squirrels off of me” without attracting serious commentary from liberal members of the media drew fire from Democratic Party spokesman Lanny Davis, a former special counsel to President Clinton. “This is just more of the same mean-spirited and divisive politics that we’ve suffered through for the past 8 years under George W. Bush,” said Davis. “Why anyone would force a poor, innocent squirrel to jump on Joe Biden is beyond me.”
Davis: “If you love nature, you must love squirrels . . .”
Biden appeared first on NBC’s “Meet the Press”, where aides threw the squirrels on him following a softball question from moderator Tom Brokaw. “Senator, you’ve been accused of plagiarism several times in your life,” Brokaw began. “How unqualified is Sarah Palin to be vice president of the United States?”
Member of White House press corps, at photo opportunity
“Well, Tom, as you know–dammit, get these squirrels off of me–over the course of my career I have taken a firm stand on crime–I’m against it–and, fer Christ sake, is somebody going to do something about these freaking squirrels!”
Brokaw: Here, hand one to me.”
“Take a moment to compose yourself if you need it,” Brokaw said, sensitive to Biden’s apparent discomfort. “I’ll just spin quarters on my moderator’s table here.”
“There is no way Sarah Palin could handle an onslaught of squirrels like me!”
“Thanks, Tom,” Biden continued after Democratic fundraiser Terry McAuliffe distracted the squirrels with offers of jobs as Supreme Court Justice and Undersecretary of State in the event of a Democratic victory in November.
McAuliffe: “There is no evidence of any cash payment to any squirrel.”
“What I’m hearing out there in America today among good, hard-working people,” Biden continued, “is a changing mood on plagiarism. If your son needs to get to football practice or your daughter has soccer and they’re running out of time to finish a two-page essay on Harry Truman or something stupid like that, there is nothing wrong with copying stuff out of the Golden Book Encyclopedia.”
Golden Book Encyclopedia
“Do you have any concern that we would be ‘dumbing down’ the quality of education in our schools if we allowed students to do that?” Brokaw asked of the man who famously said that a rank of 76 out of 85 put him in the top half of his law school class at Syracuse University. “I don’t think so, Tom,” Biden replied with his trademark smile, “but then again, it’s hard to think when you’ve got squirrels crawling all over you.”
