God love ya, Joe Biden.  You make it so easy to lampoon you — and by extension the man who chose you — that pundits really should demand a Biden Appreciation Day.  Yesterday, C-SPAN microphones picked up the Vice President off camera outside the health-care summit explaining the virtues of Vicing (via Jammie Wearing Fool):

Just moments before the afternoon session got underway, C-SPAN’s cameras picked up audio of Biden chatting casually with participants.

“It’s easy being vice president — you don’t have to do anything.”

Whomever Biden was chatting with said, “It’s like being the grandpa and not the parent.”

“Yeah, that’s it!” replied Biden.

Biden’s spokesperson later insisted to Politico that the Veep was “obviously joking,” and talked about Biden’s speeches and travels, as well as his report to Barack Obama on the first year’s successes with Porkulus. That last task would have easily fit into the President’s coffee break, and traveling and speaking don’t mean a whole lot in terms of actually governing.

The one destination mentioned, Iraq, is more a reminder of why we should be thrilled that Biden doesn’t actually do anything. If Biden had been in charge in 2006, he would have pressed to partition Iraq into three autonomous enclaves, a solution that the Iraqis refused to even consider. We’re all better off with Biden as Grampa rather than Dad.