Joe Biden's World

"It's about pace on the ball, Mr President!!"

I nearly rolled out of bed laughing last night watching the White House press briefing on C-Span by Obama and Biden regarding the "great successes" of the Stimulus Package. First, there was Joe reading from a prepared statement fashioned as a progress report to the President.

Remember those 345,000 jobs that were lost in May? Forget that. Biden now informs us that (thanks to Obama) we have "created or saved" 150,000 jobs in the first hundred days of the Obama presidency.




(That is based on some macro-economic formula probably figured out by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on his Turbo Tax software.) Actually it means that even more jobs had been expected to be lost. Jobs created? Government jobs, of course to handle all the administrative tasks needed.


By this logic, we can throw out the 15-40 record of the Washington Nationals. They have "saved" 15 games that would otherwise have been lost, right Joe? And according to Joe Biden, "It's all about pace on the ball, Mr President." That means there will be more jobs created or saved in the next 100 days.

Which means the Washington Nationals figure to "save" another 30 games in the next hundred days. Projected final record? 45 games "saved", 117 "not saved".

Joe even threw out anecdotal evidence for his claims, referring to some transformer plant in "Missoura" (yes, he called it "Missoura") which he had recently visited for some unknown reason, and where somebody, thank God, had a job.

Of course, it was all for the benefit of the adoring press as Biden read off this long-winded "white paper" punctuated with about 50 references to "Mr President" as Obama sat there impatiently waiting for his vice-president to finish and wondering what in the hell Biden was talking about.

"It's all about pace on the ball", which is Biden's chief line this week.

"What we're talking about here is putting some pace on the ball here, Mr. President... Every hundred days, if we're doing this right, Mr. President, should produce more than the last 100 days," he said. "By the fall I think we're going to be much further along the road to recovery." The spending would create or save 600,000 jobs over the next 100 days, according to Joe, on top of the 150,000 jobs the White House said were "created" or "saved" in the first 100 days. Among the items on the "roadmap" for the next 100 days are 1,500 highway projects, work at 20 Superfund sites and 200 wastewater treatment projects, as well as grants for doctors and nurses in underserved areas.




Finally, Obama thanked Joe for his "leadership", announced that he was not satisfied, and, after a few more remarks kicked the press out so he and his cabinet could speak frankly about how bad things really are.

But there is some good news; The manager of the Washington Nationals still has his job-"saved" by the stimulus plan-at least for another hundred days.


Washington Nationals manager Manny Acta "saving" one of his pitchers (who apparently didn't have good enough pace on the ball)