The Mouth That Soars

Sen. Joe Biden tends to talk a lot. And he has a penchant for making things up.

When he ran for president in 1988, Sen. Biden told a questioner that he had graduated in the top half of his law school and had received three degrees in college.

Oops.

Seems Sen. Biden earned a single bachelor's degree before heading off to law school, where he lit up the books enough to graduate 76th out of 85.

During that same campaign, Sen. Biden plagiarized entire passages from a speech delivered by Neil Kinnock, a British politician. Not only did he steal Mr. Kinnock's words, he adopted parts of the man's life story as his own.

Oops.

The incident helped derail his campaign and Sen. Biden, D-Del., returned to Washington, where he has solidified his reputation as "The Mouth That Soars."

Before being selected as Barack Obama's running mate on this year's Democratic ticket, Sen. Biden again launched a failed presidential bid. He never cracked the top tier of candidates, but did make the news when his loose lips produced this classic, backhanded compliment of Sen. Obama.

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," he said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

Oops.

Now that he's on the ticket, Sen. Biden has been a loyal soldier, hammering GOP standardbearer John McCain at every turn. But again, there's that mouth.

On the "CBS Evening News" a few days ago, Sen. Biden launched into an attack on George W. Bush over the president's response to the current financial meltdown. The president, Sen. Biden suggested, should do a better job of explaining to Americans what's going on.

"When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened,' " Sen. Biden said.

Oops.

In reality, the stock market crashed three years before FDR's election, and television wasn't introduced to the public until 1939.

As might be expected, Sen. Biden couldn't help himself and continued: "Part of what being a leader does is to instill confidence, is to demonstrate that he or she knows what they are talking about."

Oops.