The Complete Bidenisms
Collecting the vice president's gaffes and head-slappers.
"People wondered why I've embraced Scott Brown so warmly. … I wanted to wish him well. This guy's got a tough job filling the shoes of the sexiest man in the Senate … [very little laughter]. … Whoa, that didn't work at all, Scott. I think it's me, Scott, not you." —Watching another joke bomb, this one about the late Ted Kennedy's Senate successor Scott Brown, during a standup comedy routine at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner, Washington, D.C., March 17, 2010
Click here to see video of Biden's comments.
"Here I am, the first Irish Catholic vice president in the history of United States of America. Barack Obama is the first African-American in the history of the United States of America." —Forgetting the key word president, during a joke at the Radio and Television Correspondents' Dinner, Washington, D.C., March 17, 2010
Click here to see video of Biden's comments.
"I've been doing this for a long time. Not as long as my friend Dennis Ross, who's with me—Roth, who's with me—Ross, who's with me … He's with me."—Covering his own fumble during a speech at Tel Aviv University in Israel, March 11, 2010
Click here to see video of Biden's comments.
Biden: "It's easy being vice president—you don't have to do anything."
Interlocutor: "It's like being the grandpa and not the parent."
Biden: "Yeah, that's it!"—Explaining his job during a casual, off-camera conversation, caught by a C-SPAN mic, at the Blair House health care summit, Washington, D.C., Feb. 25, 2010
Click here to listen to audio of Biden's comments.
"[The health-care summit] could be pure theater."—Straying off-message during an interview with the Wilmington News Journal in describing the bipartisan health care meeting that the White House was billing as "a critical step toward getting the job done on health reform," Washington, D.C., Feb. 24, 2010
"Many statements—statemen—statesmen—have walked through this campus and pronounced statesmen better than I have."—Cracking wise during a speech at the National Defense University, Washington, D.C., Feb. 18, 2010
Rule No. 1 for Female Academics: Don’t Have a Baby
How Can You Survive in an Air Bubble 100 Feet Underwater for Three Days?
Why Do Women Always Have to Smile?
Jeremy Stahl is Slate's social media editor. You can follow him on Twitter.