HOME /  Bidenisms :  The vice president's gaffes and head-slappers.

This Week's Bidenisms

Collecting the vice president's gaffes and head-slappers.

The vice president produced two fresh Bidenisms this week. Please continue to send your nominations (with a link, please) to slatebidenisms@gmail.com. For more, and our stab at a definition, see "The Complete Bidenisms."

"I came rushing in, knowing I was late, and all I could hear you say was 'Joe Biden,' and I realized I wasn't supposed to step out. I felt like the Wizard of Oz back there."—Explaining his premature entrance after hurrying through a curtain and accidentally interrupting an introduction by Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke * during an awards ceremony, Washington, D.C., Dec. 2, 2009

Click here to see video of Biden playfully hiding behind a curtain.

"The purpose is to make it clear to [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and his government, who up until now has been unwilling to step up to the ball. … 'Fellas, you've got to step up to the ball.' "—Using a made-up idiom to deliver a tough message to Karzai's government in an interview with CBS's Early Show, Dec. 2, 2009

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Click here to see video of Biden's comments. The Bidenism is at 1:32.

Correction, Dec. 7, 2009: This article originally misspelled Gary Locke's name. (Return to the corrected sentence.)

 
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Jeremy Stahl is Slate's social media editor. Before joining Slate, he worked as a sports editor at Yahoo! U.K. in London and as a contributor for the Riviera Times in Nice, France.