This is why our Vice President is God’s gift to reporters and YouTube fans. In a visit to an ice cream shop this week, the manager asked him to lower taxes and Biden responded by calling him a smart ass.
I have tried to find the origins of the term “smart ass” with little success. I find it odd that being both a “dumb ass” and a “smart ass” are negative terms. One would think that at least being an average “ass” would be acceptable, but that also turns out to be a put down. It appears all forms of ass status are negative. Why is the humble donkey subject to such complete derision while most animals remain largely neutral or even positive in reference? Consider the fact that when President Obama was under fire for being too passive in the face of the BP disaster, his first response was to look for some “ass to kick.”
The question (that the MSM wants to avoid) is whether the Obama Administration is anti-donkey — a form of self-hate for a Democratic administration.
I would have told Biden to get his “smart ass” out of my restaurant. These politicians are starting to act like the scum they are, even in front of the cameras.
At least Obama is smart, he just ditches the press whenever he needs a little privacy to work his scheming magic. I know Soros doesn’t like camera’s around when he’s training his puppy.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/06/26/g-20-obama-gives-press-the-slip/
The origin of “smart ass” is no doubt “smart alek”. The question then is what is the origin of “alek”?
As far as those taxes, they’re required for Uncle Sam’s perpetual wars for perpetual peace.
I’m with George. I’d have shown Biden to door and told him not to bring his dumb graft riddled ass back. Fuck Joe Biden and corporate masters if he can’t remember who he is actually supposed to work for.
Ditto, Buddha.
Not only are they humble, as the professor states, they are one of the hardest working animals the world has ever seen.
I think this quote would apply to Bidens remark: “A donkey will labor ten years willingly and patiently for you, for the privilege of kicking you once.” – William Faulkner
“How much do I owe you?”
“Lower my taxes.”
“Be nice, smart ass.”
Sounds like the kind of casual banter that goes on every day between mayors and Kiwanis members, city councilmen and Tree Commission members, Governors and Rotary members … even posters on this blog telling horse jokes.
Now, if our little girl media jerks were reporting on the amount of money given by corporate donors to politicians in order to keep the loop holes in the tax code open for their benefit, then … but no … this is the kind of story the media likes … no work to do, just some video with innuendo laced over-voice. Tabloid crap.
I don’t think that President Obama’s remark about kicking someone’s “ass” was a reference to a donkey. More likely it referred to that part of the anatomy we all sit on.
A smart ass is two clicks below a wise guy in pecking order. A wise guy knows only congress can lower taxes.
Who knows Afghanistan has lots of oil and they are starting to do onshore leasing?
http://blogdredd.blogspot.com/2010/06/oilah-akbar-in-afghanistan.html
or is that at the smart ass level?
I can’t comment on whether the Obama administration is anti-donkey, but I would have to agree with Biden’s remarks, even though I would not have recommended that he remark in that manner. If this manager would actually watch or listen to anything but Fox News, he would know that unless he is making over $250,000 a year in his managerial position, he is paying less Federal taxes. If he was referring to state or local taxes, then he needs to talk to the local authorities. He was being a smart ass.
I’m with Blouise for sure!
But I’d think again before trying to get political kudos from your local working guy without having to acknowledge the true nature of the relationship…Biden stepped in poo when he thought it would be a free media ‘goodie’. So me too….’lower my taxes!!!!!!’ and remember who you work for…..
Blouise,
I get your point and understand familiar banter…but this was not it. Biden had never met this guy before. It was on a visit to Milwaukee. It’s not like he used to represent him area as a Senator from Delaware, and regularly saw the guy at Rotary lunches and town hall meetings. I see a citizen giving a comment to the Vice President of the United States and the Vice President of the United States being a conceited ass.
George,
Get real. He met the guy when he came to the back of the store and the guy had let him play with his custard machine, not that it even matters if “Biden had never met this guy before”. Did you even watch the clip? I’ve seen this conversation between customers and people at counters all the time.
The remark wasn’t even made in context of “a citizen giving comment to the Vice President of the United States”, it was a manager talking to a customer that he knew slightly personally but well enough for a jovial conversation, which it looked like to me.
maverratick,
YOU get real. You said it was a “manager talking to a customer that he knew slightly personally”. This doesn’t even make sense. Biden is just a customer? He knew him slightly personally? What???
Gotcha journalism at its finest… Is there a point to this? If I am not mistaken taxes are currently lower than they have been in 50 years. Next please.
Federal income tax chart for the last 50 years for ‘average family of four’.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/4-14-10tax-f1.jpg
Now just juxtapose those tax figures for military spending over the last 50 years and you can see how such an iniquitous social arrangement is doomed.
Karl Friedrich,
Well said.
George,
Do you have Asperger’s? Biden spends some time in the back of the restaurant with him. Then he asks how much he owes the guy. The guy says, “lower my taxes”, Biden smiles, comes back with “be nice smart-ass”. If that exchange were the first thing they said to each other, it would definitely be weird, but they were at least a little familiar with each other by then.
Anyway as a vice-president he may not have standing to make that remark, but as a customer, he certainly does. In fact he has every right to tell the guy to screw himself whether he’s the vice president or not. Why shouldn’t he receive the same level of customer treatment from businesses that you do?
Because he has more political influence than the average customer and a duty to both the citizens and Constitution of this country.
His smart ass remark was far too familiar for the limited exposure he had and unbecoming a public servant at the Federal level. It also showed the complete and commonplace disregard that Washington insiders feel toward those who do not directly benefit their perpetual campaigns in the form of huge sums of cash.
“Because he has more political influence than the average customer and a duty to both the citizens and Constitution of this country.”
He has a duty to pay for his muffin.
Then you simply expect very little of your politicians.
And people tend to rise to their perceived expectations.
As to his duty?
“I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President (or Vice-President) of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” These words are required by Art. 2, Sec. 1, Cl. 8 of the Constitution of the United States of America.
He has a helluva lot more duty than to pay for his muffin.
‘Kevin O’Rourke 1, June 27, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Federal income tax chart for the last 50 years for ‘average family of four’.
http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/4-14-10tax-f1.jpg‘
Yes things were looking good there for a bit but I think the issue is more complex for small business owners such as the man in the video;
This article finds that the effective federal tax rate facing middle-income households has trended downward over the last 25 years and is currently low by historical standards. BUT middle-income tax liabilities over this period has shifted away from individual income taxes toward payroll taxes.And then you get to add higher property taxes if the store owner owns or higher rents if he rents. I don’t think sodajerks have seen the astronomical rise in profit that other corporate CEO’s have…and then add the skyrocketing insurance costs to play fair w/the people that labor for you….it is not so simple…..small businesses get a big shaft!
http://www.allbusiness.com/north-america/united-states-missouri-metro-areas/4004545-1.html
Of course small businesses get the shaft, but in alot more ways than jsut taxes. That’s not Obama’s fault. That’s modern capitalism’s fault, which is a system utterly ruled by multinational corporations like BP.
It’s hardly extortion to get $20 billion from them over 10 years. Hell, their taxes, at last years rate of profit, should be more than that after 10 years anyway, so we the people have gottten nothing but disaster.
Ditto to what Bloise said
The politicians in this world… have at their command weapons of mass destruction far more complex than their own thinking processes.
–Charley Reese
All wars are fought for money.
–Socrates
Our ‘politicians’ are fighting wars on too many fronts, including here at home…and this manager is pretty courageous to speak this truth to the V.P., cameras rolling and all…
I wonder the P’sTB are becoming cranky at hearing so much distress from so many ‘little’ people must make it difficult to pass those bailout bills…
Karl F. Says:
Of course small businesses get the shaft, but in alot more ways than just taxes. That’s not Obama’s fault. That’s modern capitalism’s fault,
It’s a stretch to say that the Federal government’s self-inflicted deficits from its massive entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Public Union Pensions is the result of ‘Capitalism’. Who burdens businesses with the ‘FICA’ tax? ‘Capitalism’ or Congress?
On the “…that’s not Obama’s fault” for creating an anti-small business growth climate, the WaPo differs.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/graphic/2009/03/21/GR2009032100104.html
Your ‘low taxes’ for Median Income earners have simply been deferred and cost shifted to businesses and other income levels because there can never really be substantive low taxes for anyone when the Government is spending more than it can legally rake in.
The bill will eventually come due…ala Greece!
“Your ‘low taxes’ for Median Income earners have simply been deferred and cost shifted to businesses and other income levels because there can never really be substantive low taxes for anyone when the Government is spending more than it can legally rake in.”
so true! but if ‘low taxes’ were the only ingredient in this drecht pie how does that explain the dwindling middle-class? One has to look at ALL the picture and you cannot blame the workers, the ‘welfare recipients’ or anyone else who follows the gameplan only to get screwed by those who keep changing the tune when it comes THEIR turn to dance…
Dan Bronx doesn’t get it. There’s no bigger socialist welfare system than the US Military, the bloated budget of which is dragging this economy down deeper than the carcass of the Deepwater Horizon wreck.
Moreover, social security is my entitlement because I pay for it with every paycheck deduction. That’s not welfare. Real welfare, corporate welfare, the kind of welfare that actually make a decisive difference, is the kind never discussed in the commercial press in general and by Fox News Blowhards in particular.
Corporate welfare burdens society infinitely more than programs like food stamps, which were granted by the ruling class not because they’re bleeding hearts, but on the contrary, as a form of riot insurance to keep the unemployed masses from dreaming up and organizing for a new, less iniquitous social arrangement.
Corporate welfare is everywhere and it’s the real unsung burden, with a far greater social cost than anything you can counterpose. The big banks get money from the Fed at 0.5% interest then lend it out to consumers at 20% interest or more. Then when their private investments go sour the public foots the bill in welfare bailouts to the super rich, just like they did with the Savings & Loans back in the 80′s, when Neil Bush literally stole $50 million in cash and walked away with the words: “You’ve got to admit it was a pretty sweet deal.”
Defense contractors not only get free R&D monies from the Pentagon at taxpayers expense to dream up new ways to vaporize people but then they get filthy rich supplying the military when the public is lied into needless wars.
The Pentagon just admitted it spends $400 per gallon for fuel to run all the machines in the Afghan war.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-400gallon-gas-another-cost-of-war-in-afghanistan-
That outrageous cost, nevermind the rest of the war & then Iraq, amounts to direct corporate welfare, particularly when companies like Halliburton that Cheney used to run continue to get no bid contracts and have admitted to gouging up to $7 billion in overcharges.
The mindless mantra of conservatives has always blown hard about “entitlements” while hypocritiaclly ignoring that giant corporations like BP are the biggest recipiants of welfare, avoiding taxes with offshore registry and “entitled” to suck the finite resources from under our public lands for pennies on the dollar, then leaving the land a toxic dump that taxpayers will have to pay to clean up because rest assured $20 billion over ten years is just a fraction of what the real social cost of what that disaster will really entail. And conservatives have the audacity to apologize to BP!
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.” — John Stuart Mill
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/28/house-dems-citing-corrupt_n_628126.html
I just read or heard yesterday that 82 cents out of every dollar currently spent by the Department of Defense goes to private corporations. That’s 82% of the DoD budget, all taxpayer money of course, getting sucked right into the coffers of some of the greediest, filthiest, mega corporations ever to disgrace this planet. And yet we still hear this constant shrill shrieking about “entitlements” — the loudest from a Party with zero credibility, unprecedented incompetence, and unparalleled hypocrisy.
This is where we are ….folks don’t even get the idea of joshing with each other anymore…we use to do that kind a stuff all the time to each other in Chicago…if you didn’t, you couldn’t be sure whether you were loved or not…light n up everybody….
This guy got away with something. He is lucky Biden didn’t threaten to kick his ass.
Biden could’ve said we’re doing the best we can, friend.
I agree with Amir.
Swarthmore mom: Thank you for the link. Dennis Kucinich’s remarks are noteworthy, IMHO. He says, accurately, “We are losing our nation to lies about the necessity of war.”
I also agree with Amir…