Posted: Feb. 26, 2015

GROPE-A-DOPE 

By Celia Cohen
Grapevine Political Writer

Jon Stewart nailed Joe Biden for those too-close encounters of womenkind.

He called it "The Audacity of Grope."

Stewart, the late-night host of "The Daily Show," did a segment Tuesday on Comedy Central about Biden's tendency to take the concept of hands-on politics a little too literally.

This came the week after the newscasts with the Democratic vice president from Delaware at the swearing-in for Ashton Carter, the new defense secretary.

Those news clips should be R-rated. "Our Joe" is "R-Joe"?

With his hands on the shoulders of Stephanie Carter, the secretary's wife, and his head bent to whisper in her ear, Biden was one pair of fangs removed from drawing in as close as a vampire.

Not that it was Biden's first bite of this behavior. Jon Stewart exposed him as a serial slitherer by showing video of Biden after he administered the ceremonial oath of office to various senators.

This included the little kiss he gave Maggie Coons, the teen-age daughter of Chris Coons, the Democratic senator who has Biden's old seat, as Chris Coons continues to grin too broadly and Annie Coons, his wife, looks like she is desperately still trying to smile when she would rather give Biden a shove away from little Maggie.

"It's apparently a Senate rite of passage," Stewart cracked. "You're not officially sworn in until Delaware Joe has felt up one female member of your immediate family."

Naturally there were plenty of others besides Stewart who piled on.

For example, Congressional Quarterly ran a contest for its readers to supply a caption for a political cartoon showing Biden with an old "WIN" button, which once stood for "Whip Inflation Now" under President Gerald Ford, but the cartoon Biden has turned into "Whip ISIL Now."

One suggested caption has Biden saying, "I also give them out to any Wife I Nuzzle!"

The Delaware Republican Party also scrambled to put up a new Web site it called "Joe Being Joe -- Embarrassing Delaware Daily!" Among other things, the Republicans resurrected the goofy Associated Press photo of Biden sweet-talking a biker in an Ohio diner in 2012, while her two male brethren exchange an eye-rolling look.

Biden does get it. Politico had a video of him joking to a group, "I will not be offended if you don't want to, but I'm going to be in that room if anybody wants a photograph."

Stewart and "The Daily Show," at least, cut Biden some slack -- by noting his record on women's issues and backing it up with clips of some of his more memorable sayings, namely, "no means no," and "no man has a right to raise a hand to a woman."

As Stewart put it, "In general, he's great, it's the moments with actual women he seems to have a problem with."

But then came the killer finale with the appearance of Samantha Bee, a regular on the show, as she pretended she had just come from an interview with the vice president.

Stewart asked her what Biden had been doing, and she said he had been writing "I will not grope women" 100 times on a chalkboard, eating strawberry preserves without utensils, changing the oil on his motorcycle and munching on Cheetos.

Samantha Bee said this as she stood with two chalk-colored and strawberry-colored handprints on the front of her blouse, and after turning around, two handprints on her butt as brown as an oil stain and as orange as a Cheeto.

What there is here is one colorful vice president.

RETURN TO COVER PAGE

###