Opinion: Supreme Court drama: Joe Biden is #$%^&#@ whispering again!

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Ruh-roh. Or ruh-#$%^&#@-roh. Joe Biden is whispering again.

You gotta hand it to President Obama. While the West Wing undoubtedly went into panic and hysteria when the vice president whispered into Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s ear on live TV Monday morning, Obama didn’t flinch.

We know. We watched the video a few hundred times -- frame by frame -- just to be certain. It’s important to be accurate.

Obama was stoic. Confident. Like a rock.

It wasn’t like that time when the president painfully grimaced after Biden mocked Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. for messing up the oath of office, as you’ll recall.

One check on Twitter was all you need to know. Everyone was on high alert.

‘Okay, who didn’t hold their breath when Joe Biden leaned over to whisper in Elena Kagen’s ear?’ asked Twitter user DanielDurcholz.

Rightly so.

It was just a year ago that Biden did not drop an expletive when whispering to Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor in a similar ceremony. Nothing much was said during that exchange. Sotomayor said Biden counseled her ‘not to be nervous.’

But it was the other incidents around a live mic that ratcheted up the alert grid from orange to red. Like the historic signing of the healthcare bill, when Biden noted that ‘it was a big #$%^&#@ deal.’

Or the #$%^&#@ oops a year ago at an Amtrak station, where he said, ‘Gimme a #$%^&#@ break.’

What was said to Kagan? We don’t know. But Biden will be on talk show host Michael Smerconish’s radio program Tuesday, and Smerconish is on the case.

‘VP Biden on tomorrow’s program!,’ he tweeted. ‘Will ask about Kagan nomination and Specter campaign.’

By the way, there was other news at Monday morning’s event. Like details about the Supreme Court nominee. We didn’t quite get to that, but our colleague Johanna Newman has a full #$%^&#@ report here.

-- Jimmy Orr

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