Oval Newlywed Game

By MAUREEN DOWD
NYT

Washington

The etiquette breach was not widely noticed, swallowed by the cacophony over the economy.

But Joe Biden no doubt felt the sting when Barack Obama dissed him again in public.

The new president is so elegant, and so full of comity, even to his foes, that when he is simply a tad ungracious, it jumps out.

At his news conference last Monday, Mr. Obama was asked by Fox’s Major Garrett about the vice president’s startling assertion that even if he and the president do “everything right,” “there’s still a 30 percent chance we’re going to get it wrong.”

Admittedly, it must be an adjustment for the president, a detached observer who “travels light,” as friends put it, to be yoked to such a garrulous social animal.

(More here.)