You guys are kidding, right?  Aside from the risible Drudge, does anyone anywhere care about this stuff?  Never mind the fact that both statements are weak tea in terms of embarrassment.

7.5? How about 1.5?

This is the sort of nonsense that Crowley gets himself worked up over. But come on, who really cares about this during a week when we're discussing forking over 700 billion to pay off bad debts held by the banks? Now if he said the economy was fundamentally sound...

FW: I'm there with you.  This is bizarre.  The media are being buggered by the McCain camp on Palin and we are worried about a couple of off the cuff statements by Biden?

This on ABC News:

"There's a battle going on right now over how the networks will be allowed to cover Sarah Palin's big day of visits in NY with world leaders. Palin is scheduled to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai shortly, followed by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and then with McCain advisor, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The networks had arranged for a "pool" camera- one camera to cover the meetings, whose video would be pooled or shared with all networks. Such arrangements are standard when dealing with intimate high-level meetings between leaders and candidates. But typically, along with cameras, there is an editorial presence-- at least one print reporter, one TV reporter and one radio reporter is standard. Today, the McCain campaign had said it would allow only one editorial person inside. Now, the campaign is saying it wants only the camera inside with no editorial presence. All of the networks are objecting. Stay tuned.

11:30 AM Update:  The networks have voted to BAN any use of the photographs/video in protest.

12 Noon:  Word has come in that a CNN producer WILL be allowed to accompany the camera at these meetings.  This issue appears to be resolved."

blogs.abcnews.com/.../sarah-palin-mee.html

Ask not whether Biden makes any "gaffes"; ask to even be allowed to have a reporter in the room when the Moosemama meets Karzai.

Ach.

Uhhhh... help me understand here, folks.  Biden said his chopper was forced down.  Turns out it was.  Around the location where he purports bin Laden is hiding.  One can infer what one likes, but he didn't say anything that isn't patently true, and cannot be easily explained as such.  Weeeeeeak.

As for the first gaffe, well... that was kind of dumb.  We'll see how it goes.  I think it's a wash with Carly Fiorina's Palin HP gaffe, though it'll be harder to get him to shut up than her.

How is this a bad thing again?

I agree that both of these are pretty small on the Biden (or any) scale.  The first one was certainly off message, but (1) most people don't even know the ad he is talking about and (2) if more people now see it, is that so bad?  (And it's not like he said the ad was false, just that it was mocking McCain's age/out of touchness; or at least that's what he seems to be saying.)

The second one--and the comparison to Hillary and her Bosnia visit--is ridiculous.  Everything Joe said was true.  He didn't claim enemy fire; he didn't tell how an experience that never happened was burned into his memory.  To be sure, one could think that the Taliban forced his chopper down, but the point he was fairly making is that he was at the heart of the terrorist threat to the US.  

And with the American economy crumbling, "gaffes" like these are not going to get any real attention.

I'll go with 2.5 for the first. It was in fact a crappy ad, and I don't think there's anything wrong or damaging about pointing that out.

For the second, zero. Biden said his plane was forced down, and according to this post it was. He didn't say, or as far as I can tell imply, anything beyond that.

So I guess that averages out at 1.25. If this was a lunatic fringe neocon blog, I could see someone giving there two "gaffes" together a 3 or a 4, but they'd have to be acting with characteristic intellectual dishonesty to stretch it that far.

Huffington Post has a story that nets are pulling cameras from Palin's UN photo-ops with foreign leaders because McCain campaign won't allow editorial coverage. More important story. Agree with comments by FWright and mpatrickhendri re Crowley. I'll take Biden: His image is positive: good, guileless, hard-working guy plugging away doing the right thing by blue-collar voters.

So Crowley, have you ever been forced down in the midst of a blinding snowstorm in the mountains of Afghanistan? Like you wouldn't shit your pants? That scenario is so far removed from Hill's stroll down the tarmac receiving flowers at the end as can be.

Repeat: Helicopter going down in mountains of Afghanistan in midst of snowstorm in enemy territory (which is about the entire country outside of Kabul). Yeah, like Republicans are going to argue that is not white knuckle stuff.

Ask any loudmouthed Republican asshole that question? I know it won't shut them up (they are assholes afterall) but any average American will side with Biden.

Jeez, FW's right, the Plank evidently reads way too much Drudge. These are gaffes alright, but not 7.5-worthy, not even close. Quick rebuttal:

1. Biden goes off message and undermines the message of an admittedly cheap-shot negative ad. So the campaign has a conscience, what's the big deal? And just think about how many more people know about the fact that McCain is internet illiterate. Even if they're turned off by the ad, that little kernel of whoa-really? may be worth something down the road.

2. Biden never says he was forced down by Al Qaeda or sniper fire or whatever. He was ambiguous in his wording, leaving open the impression that he could have been engaged in death-defying stunts on behalf of his country. But was he or wasn't he on the ground in the mountains near Al Qaeda's base? I've yet to hear anyone dispute that part of it. So what if it was a snowstorm.

Gaffe-O-Meter Rating = 4.0.  Maybe.

Save the 7.5's for real gaffes. Like making weird insinuations about how when you're president "if someone needs to resign, he'll resign." Senator, and how, exactly, would you strong-arm, say, the SEC chairman into resigning? Horse's head in his bed?

I have to agree -- if this is a 7.5, then the dial on this sucker needs to go WAY past 11.

The first comment makes Biden look like a stand-up guy, and it hardly hurts Obama. Why? Because the ad in question isn't morally repugnant or dishonest. (McCain has bragged about learning to use a computer -- the "war injuries" line, dreamed up outside his campaign, is so pathetic that he's not pushing it himself. And, dear God,  would he sound like a whiner to disabled Americans if he did!)

As for the second line, part of what is dangerous about flying around in a helicopter in Afghanistan is being forced by a blizzard to make an emergency landing in hostile rocky wilderness nowhere. I am sure it was harrowing, and I am sure that Biden was not in Afghanistan to visit its lovely beaches or beauty salons. I see no dishonesty here.

Biden's experience put him in a damn sight more personal risk than Sarah Palin's much-touted visit to a Kuwaiti border crossing -- ahem, I mean, her tour of Iraq. You really think the Straitjacket Express wants to dwell on vice-presidential foreign travel cred?

Also, you guys had way too much fun putting together that graphic. Probably had you in a tizzy, wanting to inaugurate it with a splash.

Upon reading the reactions of my fellow TalkBackers, I hereby revise my Gaffe-O-Meter rating: 2.0 (still high... only because of Assignment Editor Matt Drudge).

Wow.  Echochamber Kool-Air drinkers, what?

This can't be a 7.5, because otherwise Biden's anti-coal rant would require him to shoot himself.

Traytigger,

I think you found the reason for this post. Having whipped up this graphic in anticipation of a Biden gaffe, they couldn't wait any longer and used it at the first hint of a mistake.

The coal comments does, I think, qualify as a real gaffe, and might actually have legs in a slow news week.  But this is very far from a slow news week...

I'm sorry, but Joe Biden telling the truth about being in a helicopter that had to make an emergency landing in Afghanistan isn't even close to being a gaffe. Who down at TNR offices actually believes it is?  Seriously, what the hell is wrong with the editors today?

I think the problem with the editors is that they're actually living in the real world and reporting on the campaign as it is unfolding. I hate to break it to some of you, but that means sometimes taking your preferred candidate to task.

The helicopter gsffe  wasn't about being on a helicopter forced to make a landing in the snow. It was about Biden overdramatizing it and bragging that sitting on an airfield meant he could tell you exactly where Al Qaeda was located.

Then you have the coal gaffe, which followed on the heels of Biden disavowing his tiicket's  own commercial before backtracking later  the same day, which followed Obama having to walk back his running mate's AIG statements on the Today Show this morning. This followed Biden saying Hillary might have been a better running mate.

These are gaffes by any definition of gaffe. Does that mean Biden won't be a great vice president? Not at all, but don't shoot the messenger because Biden can't get out of his own way.

Yes, but the campaign *isn't actually unfolding that way.*  The news media is barely covering these comments, if at all.  They just aren't getting much play anywhere except Drudge.  And here, I guess.

Peter, what FW said, plus: no one's saying these weren't gaffes; they're just not 7.5/10 gaffes. They barely register, for all of the above reasons.

peter1943 - Biden's helicopter wasn't grounded at an airport. It was an emergency landing in an open field. They waited for several hours on a snowy night for trucks to come pick them up. That small act of endurance doesn't alone qualify him to be vice-president, but at the same time, it isn't like missing the Delta Shuttle to LaGuardia. I maintain that Biden did nothing wrong by mentioning it, and TNR is out of line calling it a gaffe.

Ben, I'm Biden's side on this, but I still think it's a gaffe, albeit a minor gaffe, if only because the ambiguous and triumphalist wording leaves his intent somewhat open to interpretation.

Sure, fine, it's a gaffe.  A little pipsqueak of a gaffe.  Like a "2."

What danny said. BFD.

That said, I think the Palin-Biden debate is going to be a LOT of fun. Hope Palin wears something provocative-- as in provoking some very interesting Bidenisms.

What did he say about Kucinich's wife, again?

The first is certainly a gaffe. Did I read the second correctly? It seems a bit dramatic, but not at all inconsistent with the facts. Did he imply that he was forced down by enemy fire? Maybe, but my take was that he was trying to emphasize the importance of Afghanistan-Pakistan, as compared to Iraq, and then used his personal anecdote to make his point more compelling. I would much rather our political discourse be professorial and cerebral--I like Obama for a reason--but to complain about this particularly, rather than the general abuse of words and truth suffered at the hands of politicians, seems odd.

Also, this new feature is dangerously "meta". A gaffe is a statement that turns out to be damaging, not just any old stupid comment. A gaffe is not a comment. It's how that comment plays. By highlighting these nascent gaffes, you may be doing something to aid their development. And that is a bad thing, particularly if you're a person who cares about substantive issues more than journalistic games.  

I for one think better of Biden for speaking up about that silly ad.

I'd even go as far as saying that if I were American, I'd feel better about voting for Obama knowing that he had an independent-minded number 2 in tow who'd talk back to him if he thought something was bad, than if he'd just had a talking points bot.

Michael Crowley is worth reading more than almost all of the reader bloggers put together (honorable exceptions: the usual suspects - williamyard, tep, and a few others).  He devised a Gaffe-o-meter, not an election impact-o-meter. I am humbled - back in May I blogged that Obama would never tap Joe "Motor Mouth" Biden precisely because of his Achilles mouth, er, excuse me, heel. May I also note that bloggers are generally giving a pass to Biden, even as many last spring thundered down on Hillary for her Balkan gaffe. So many people love to think of themselves as fair but so few are.

tempest in a thimble

Lib Ref, how do you know it was Crowley? There was no byline and his Stump post was only linked. Only name is Stokely Baksh on the graphic credit.

Frankly, I doubt Crowley would have been so crude as to have devised a Gaffe-O-Meter. Either way, there were worse gaffes with traction (think coal mines or Hillary as VP musings) that the Plank poster could have linked to besides those two bullsh*t examples.

I did not watch the Vice-Presidential debate, I admit it. Our apartment simply does not have enough alcohol in it to have made me willing to sit through it. However, in reading up on it today, it seems things fell...