We’ve got plenty of proof that Twitter is, in fact, a weapon of mass political destruction. Twitter has already taken down the career of another notoriously plain spoken politician this year (his name is also used to refer to sausages commonly used for family barbecues). Push the wrong button and suddenly your boxer shorts are busy eating your political career for breakfast. So, of course, the logical thing to do with something you KNOW is a political nightmare waiting to happen is hand it over to a guy who can’t manage to keep from swearing within five feet of a live microphone.
Not to mention that part where even when Biden MEANS to say things in public hearing, he is entirely capable of creating a nationwide health scare with an offhand remark. Remember this gem from the good old Swine Flu days?
“I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now… When one person sneezes it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. I would not be, at this point, if they had another way of transportation, suggesting they ride the subway.” Joe Biden freaking everybody out on the Today Show on April 30, 2009.
Then, of course, there are the offhand remarks that remind us that Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann aren’t the only politicians who could use a crash course in basic American history:“When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.” Joe Biden in an interview with Katie Couric, Sept. 22, 2008.
For all the rest of us who could ALSO use a crash course in basic American history, Franklin Delano Roosevelt wasn’t president when the stock market crashed in 1929, and even if he had been, had you offered to record one of his speeches and put it on television in 1929, the response would have been, “Whatavision?” ‘Cause television, children, has not been around since the dawn of time. Sorry to burst your bubbles.
Twitter, as we all know, has turned offhand remarks into the breaking news of the modern age. So yeah, first thing I’d have thought if I was the dude or dudette at the White House in charge of figuring out how to give the joint a Twitter presence would be, “Yes, let’s give it to Joe Biden!”
The White House assures us all that most of Biden’s tweeting, like most tweeting from the rich, famous and old, will be done by staffers, which begs the question of why we’re even pretending this is Biden’s Twitter account? I don’t know about you, but I’d be much more excited to follow @Intern than @VP. When Biden unthinkingly Tweets about aliens invading or that the unicorn peace treaty is almost completed that @VP “follow” is really gonna pay off. ****
WOW. Biden on Twitter is SUCH A BAD IDEA. Aren’t there people on our President’s staff whose job it is to be mindful of potentially disastrous situations like this?