Ticket Replay: Oath-muff mocker Joe Biden muffs Hillary Clinton's oath

As the holidays unfold, The Ticket's thoughts turn to a little undeserved time off. So we're re-publishing some of our favorite or most-read items from 2009. This item originally appeared on Feb. 2.

As everyone knows, Vice President Joe Biden is usually one of the planet's most circumspect when it comes to the spoken word.

So that same world was stunned when on the Obama administration's first afternoon in office, Biden stepped up to administer the oath of office to some staffers and made a sarcastic crack about needing the text to read because his memory wasn't as good as that of Chief Justice John Roberts, who had muffed Barack Obama's presidential oath the previous day in front of a few hundred million people.

Obama quietly reached out and squeezed Biden's left elbow to say, "Enough." And Biden later phoned the chief justice to apologize.

Today, with no foreign funerals ready yet, Biden was sent over to the State Department to re-administer the oath of office to Hillary Clinton. She actually took the oath just off the Senate floor moments after being confirmed last month. But a new administration can never have too many happy photo ops showing everyone getting down to work.

So in front of an eager pro-Clinton audience Biden stepped up to the new secretary of State with her oath on a piece of paper in hand.

And you just know what happened. He muffed it.

-- Andrew Malcolm

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Photo: Reuters

Comments

[Nan]

"He muffed it." That's Biden's entire career in three words.

[Leadfoot]

No, he didn't muff it.

What is this, attack Joe Biden for no decent reason day? What a joke this site has become. Please, to the author and poor Nan, go back and look at the actual tape and you will see there was no muff.

No, really. Please ask Hillary and Bill Clinton directly. You'll get laughed off.

But do remember that a year ago today, and for months after, media and blogoshere fell over themselves trying their darndest, pouring daily through Biden appearances, desperately seeking any form of misspeak.

This was one of the many pathetic "non-gaffes" played out in hopes of demeaning anything Biden contributed to the administration. The good news: the pseudo attacks didn't work...well, maybe with the Fox News crowd :-)

Oh, and Roberts did muff it.