Biden gave Obama his due credit on charisma, appearance, etc, before drawing his gun on how Obama's attractiveness is a red herring to what really matters. It seems the Reps--and Hillary btw--seem intent on doing their 'job,' so to speak, to bump off Obama's competitive edge through third party innuendo and false rumouring, etc., as politicians always do and will do so to Biden as Biden will in turn go after them. Rush is a Rep advocate and makes a huge living out of it. He has a stake in fanning flames against Dems to help the GOP and his own interests. I really don't get from Biden's statements what Rush is trying to make out with them, and certainly I don't put a siren to what Biden said even if Rush is correct in what Biden meant. I mean, is Al Sharpton 'mainstream' for example? Since when did Rush, et al, get this epiphany to become so 'politically correct'? Then again, it may just be me because not much bothers me with these kinds of claims anyway no matter which side blows them up unless a comment is clearly out of bounds. Anyone can take the kind of statement Biden made and spin it because it has a common weakness in structure that allows it to be spun. I remember the same kinds of stunts being used against Judge Alito at his confirmation hearing for the SCOTUS. Every vagary of anything he ever said or wrote that could be twisted was pulled out by his political enemies to make him into a closet bigot, sexist, arch right wing nutcase, etc. I tend to be very libertarian on government power and social matters so I have alot of philosophical differences with Alito on constitutional matters, but having actually had cases before him as an attorney in his former federal circuit, I know that he is not a bigot, etc. And even if I never had that opportunity, I would have known that politicians and political advocates love to mischaracterise statements of their opponents for their own benefit. Had Biden or Alito and others who experience this kind of attack been that bad in reality, it would have surfaced awhile ago through slip of the tongues and spontaneous angers in explicit and ugly words.