Opinion: Joe Biden apologizes this time for swipe at Chief Justice Roberts

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Vice President Joe Biden has apologized for cracking a joke at the expense of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., referring to the fact that the chief justice, in his first inauguration, reordered the words in the presidential oath of office.

During a swearing in for senior White House staff last week, Biden snarked, ‘My memory is not as good as Chief Justice Roberts’.’

President Obama looked chagrined and even pulled Biden gently at the elbow. Not a good sign.

As the Ticket noted last week, Biden held his first gaffe until the administration’s first full day in office. Biden called the chief justice to apologize for his sarcastic remark and the vice president’s spokesman said they had ‘a good conversation.’

Sometimes in Washington a gaffe is the crime of getting caught for telling the truth. Biden trackers know it is not the first time the genial Delaware politician has had to eat his words.

During the campaign, he famously told voters that an Obama administration would be tested by a foreign enemy within the first few months of the administration, as John Kennedy was in the 1960s.

‘Mark my words,’ the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned during a fundraiser in Seattle in October. ‘It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy ... And he’s gonna need help.’

And on his first day as a declared candidate for president, Biden said of Obama that he was “the first mainstream African American presidential candidate who is articulate and bright and clean-cut and a nice-looking guy. I mean, that’s a storybook, man.” This did not sit well with some black leaders -- like Rev. Jesse Jackson -- who thought they were mainstream and pretty good looking too.

--Johanna Neuman

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