3 Reasons Why Joe Biden Won't Get My Vote

Vice President Joe Biden
(Image: The White House)

I've been inclined to dismiss most of the vice president's bluster during last week's debate as an affectation intended to meet two objectives:

• Energize the base.
• Raise the bar on obnoxious behavior to give the president a lot of margin to act mean and boorish on his own toward Mitt Romney in tonight's debate.

On those points he was quite successful. I hear he can be charming. And then there's the compelling blue-collar back-story. Not to mention he had to overcome the death of his first wife--I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Nevertheless, three things stood out from his performance. Now, if it were just the debate it might be one thing, but who he was in the debate is who he's been for years.

1. He failed to show the temperment necessary to fulfill the most traditional duty of a vice president: Attending the funerals of foreign leaders. There are 7-year-olds who exhibit better behavior in serious situations, and, as skilled as I am in the field, it would be problematic to threaten the featured passenger of Air Force 2 with a time-out.
2. Él es señor pantalones en el fuego. Or so hopelessly malfeasant that he truly does not understand things happening within the administration that are public knowledge, in particular regarding how the HHS mandate affects religious institutions and the lead-up to the terrorist attack on the Benghazi consulate. I'm going with him as Mr. Pants-on-Fire; it's less scary.
3. I know there are people who will argue that a vote shouldn't be based on who you think the better Catholic is, but rather on the policies being advocated. That's fine as far as it goes, assuming you buy the Social Justice gambit being employed by the left. However, as a Catholic claiming to be animated by his Catholic faith, it gives great pause, shall we say, when he:

a.) Protects and advocates subsidizing intrinisically evil policies, which he claims to oppose personally, precisely because they are personal, which in turn makes him "unwilling" to impose his beliefs on others, while
b). At the same time, he seeks to impose his beliefs on others, on a purely partisan basis if necessary, for prudential matters of social and fiscal policy.

That's a bit of metaphysical legerdemain that would make Yogi Berra's head spin. That's the weltanschauung for the man one heartbeat away? Pick your metaphor: This is the very picture of a house divided against itself, or a house built on sand, or the wielding of the dictatorhip of relativism. No thanks.

Yes, there is much more to Catholic social teaching than abortion, contraception, cloning, same-sex "marriage," etc. But then again, you also miss a lot when you cut out (among others) sections 155, 230-237, and 565-574 of the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Four more years? I'll pass.