San Francisco Crowd That Giants Are Headed To The Super Bowl : Joe Biden

Joe Biden surely has heard the advice of his Vice Presidential predecessor Hubert Humphrey (1965-69), but was reminded, as all politicians occasionally are, that "The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously," on Wednesday.

Speaking to a crowd in San Francisco during a fundraiser speech, Biden confused the 49ers and New York Giants in a most untimely fashion.

"The Giants [are] on their way to the Super Bowl," Biden said. This, of course, promptly drew a chorus of boos from the crowd.

Biden pulled one of the quicker u-turns in political history, clarifying that the local baseball team's name had got stuck in his head, and he confused the football team name for the baseball team name. He had not meant to guarantee a New York Giants berth. Ah, backtracking and scattered clarification, staples of any polished politician's bag of tricks.

Pandering to the local crowd is a timeless art of the truly talented politician. Whether it's talking about the hard, blue collar workers in Detroit or the farmers in Iowa, a good politician can speak to what matters to the local crowd he or she is addressing. So one can hardly fault Biden for taking this route, it seemed safe. His intentions were sound, the execution just fell well short of the mark, and the response was warranted, to say the least.

Besides, it could have been more confusing and bizarre. He could have been speaking to a New England crowd and declared that the Red Sox were on their way to the Super Bowl, or to a Baltimore crowd declaring the Orioles the better team in AFC championship fight. They're both birds, you see. These things happen.