By Emily Geiger

With the vice presidential debate fast approaching, and the Palin criticism machine going full-force, I feel the need to speak up and remind people of a few things.

First, Palin has really not had a chance to prove herself yet. She hit a homerun with her convention speech, she’s had some mediocre interviews (in which she’s forced to defend McCain’s positions, which are not necessarily her own), and she’s not been allowed to be herself since the convention.

And she’s still having to hear how McCain must not have properly vetted her before picking her.

But what about Biden? I’ve come to the conclusion that Obama just must not have properly vetted him. How else can you explain all of the following:

-Biden has mispronounced Obama’s name,

-Asked a wheelchair-bound man to stand up,

-Stated that Hillary might have been a better vice-presidential pick,

-Opposed the AIG bailout when Obama supported it,

Newsweek’s Andrew Romano: “Noting that Obama had been hitting McCain for flip-flopping on the AIG bailout, Lauer asked the Illinois senator how he could criticize his Republican rival when his own running mate had made the same mistake. His answer? "I think Joe should have waited, as well." Awkward.”

-Said that people should be patriotic and just pay higher taxes.

-Told an environmentalist that he and Obama did NOT support clean coal, when Obama clearly does

-In regard to the Obama ad which criticized McCain for not being able to use a computer (due to his war injuries, a fact which was conveniently left out of the ad), Biden called the ad “terrible,” saying, “I didn't know we did it and if I had anything to do with it, we would have never done it." This was soon followed by an Obama press release basically retracting Biden’s statements.

-And let’s not even go into the fact that Biden is a proven, lying plagiarizer (once in law school and again when he was running for president in 1987).

A Newsweek’s Romano put it this way:

“ Biden's latest spree [of gaffes] is more than an irrelevant testament to his uncontrollable verbosity. It's actually making Obama's message on substantive matters like taxes, energy, AIG and McCain more difficult to hear. In an election, that hurts the candidate more than anyone else.”

All of this is bad for a campaign, but what if Obama/Biden were elected?

“Distracting a campaign is one thing. Distracting a president, a political party and, by extension, the country? Awkward doesn't quite cover it.”

Couldn't have said it better myself.