Granny Starver vs. Smokin' Joe

The invaluable Charles P. Pierce previews tonight's Veep debate. But first he rips Obama's "feather-in-a-gale-of-bullshit" performance last week, especially since "Romney is so obviously a bag of hot air that they should string him up and float him through Manhattan this Thanksgiving."  But Biden loves this stuff.

So tonight, when Biden takes the stage to debate Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny-starver from the state of Wisconsin, it is very unlikely that the debate will hinge on whether either man really wants to be there. Biden eats these kinds of things on toast, and Ryan is as ambitious as Satan. What the debate will test, however, is whether or not the zombie-eyed granny-starver can summon up — or, more accurately, reconstruct — the persona that was built for him through the years by dozens of credulous Beltway hacks who looked at a youthful Republican who wore shoes and didn't talk about how Jesus road to work on a diplodocus, who instead immersed himself in pie charts and flow sheets and, in doing so, had created for everyone a believable simulcrum of a Smart Person....

Joe Biden is not afraid of needles, and Joe Biden wants to stay vice-president for awhile. I'll never understand that, but people take their fun where they can find it and needling Paul Ryan can be rare good craic. I do not think Joe Biden will be so overwhelmed by the gravity of the occasion that he denies himself that kind of fun.