May Day With Joe

My great uncle, who was taken out of the Soviet Union for a speech that Khruschev made in France and was forgotten there, used to tell us about the May Day festivals in Moscow, when the Soviet leadership would stand out in the cold for hours on end, enduring brutal cold and privation just to watch the ponderous Soviet military and arsenal roll by for the cameras.

That's how this May Day is shaping up for Big Guy and me, because we're spending the entire morning - including lunch - with Joe Biden. Why am I spending the time with them? Because since yesterday morning, when Scare Force 2 opened his yap about the porcine-induced disaster threat, Gibbsy and Toes have decided that Big Guy needs to measure his words around the vice president so that there can be no misunderstanding about what is said. As Rahm put it, dealing with Joe is like dealing with an exuberant Irish Setter without the affection ... or the clean up hassles ... but still.

So we meet with the Cabinet, and Biden is with us for all the briefings: foreign, intelligence, economic. Then it's lunch, and then swearing in ceremonies for Locke and Sebelius. At some point, Big Guy will be sitting down to review the initial briefs on Supreme Court nominees. And Biden will be with us the whole time. We've been in office 102 days now, isn't that about the time a slew of third-tie foreign leaders start dying off? The man needs something involving nothing to do.