The victim this time is Stephanie Carter, wife of incoming defense secretary Ashton Carter, seen here holding forth on ISIS while his better half suffers the ritual indignity of the vice presidential droit de seigneur at swearings-in. Silver lining: Unlike most of the females whom Biden creeped on at last month’s oath-taking for the new Congress, Mrs. Carter is of age.

On a scale of one to Ted Kennedy, I’m rating this a solid three — possibly appropriate for a good friend at a private function, not so much during the formal transfer of power at the Pentagon.

https://twitter.com/DanFosterType/status/567723151740502017

I don’t get it either. Everyone understands why the wider media doesn’t make a fuss about it but it’d only take a few reporters to start grumbling before this becomes a headache for the White House. You’d think someone in the Hopenchange PR shop would pull Uncle Joe aside and let him know that he’s behaving increasingly like his Onion caricature. (It’s asking too much to demand that they reprimand him out of sincere objection to his busy hands.) Maybe this is another artifact of Obama entering the YOPO stage of his presidency. If O can summarily rewrite the country’s immigration laws and then go party with domestic terrorists, why can’t Biden cop a quick feel at the otherwise boring bureaucratic functions he’s forced to attend? Come next year, he’ll be showing up to these things without a shirt on. What are you going do to stop him? Vote against (giggle) Hillary?

To refresh your memory, here’s a shot from last month’s Senate ceremonies of Chris Coons’s daughter escaping to a happy place in her mind as Vice President Feelz infects her with a near-lethal dose of cooties. Exit quotation from Michael Warren: “Joe Biden is Washington’s Richard Dawson.”