(upgrade of comment I left in diary 5th Grader Interviews Joe Biden on the V.P. Job).
Chris Matthews to Nancy Pfotenhauer, who was defending Sarah Palin's description to a third grader of what a vice president does: "READ THE JOB DESCRIPTION!"
In an eerie repeat of Sarah Palin being asked to explain the functions of the vice president to a third grader, at an elementary school in Florida Joe Biden was interviewed by fifth grader Damon Weaver, who asked him to explain what a vice president does. Biden's answer: Two things: Help the president get elected, and help the president govern.
When I listened to Biden's answer, I thought, Chris Matthews is going to blow his top. See the Hardball video and transcript below. Chris has skin in this game.
As a civics lesson, explaining to grade-schoolers what a vice president does, Biden failed like Palin to give the two Constitutional VP functions of replacing the president and breaking ties in the Senate, and like Palin he described the VP going to the Hill to work with senators to further the president's policies, much like what Matthews described (below) was LBJ's misconception when he left the Senate to become VP.
(**UPDATED TEXT IN ITALICS:)
Compare Palin's and Biden's description to questions from grade-schoolers of what the vice president does :
(the italicized context in Palin's answer was not in the clip Matthews used)
REPORTER: Reporter: Finally, Governor, we've been trying to engage some local grade-schoolers the last few elections, and we do a feature called Questions from the Third Grade. Brandon Garcia wants to know, what does the vice president do?
PALIN: Ah, that's something that Piper would ask me as a second grader also. That's a great question, Brandon, and a vice president has a really great job because not only are they there to support the president's agenda, they're like the team member, the teammate to that president, but also they're in charge of the United States Senate, so if they want to, they can really get in there with the senators and make a lot of good policy changes that will make life better for Brandon and his family and his classroom, and it's a great job, and I look forward to having that job.
DAMON WEAVER, FIFTH GRADE: Since you are trying to be the vice president of our country, can you please tell the students at my school what the vice president does?
BIDEN: Well a vice president helps the president do two things, helps the president get elected and helps the president run the government. And so what the vice president, if it really works well, the vice president is someone, when the president is making really tough decisions, like do we go to war, do we spend more money for education, do we help kids get to college, that the vice president sits in the room and says, "Well, Mr. President, this is what I think." And it's got to be somebody the president trusts in order to for him to be able to work out a deal where they govern together. And that's just kind of my job. I've been a senator a long time, there's a lot of things I know a little bit about, and my job is to say to Barack Obama, when I think he's wrong, "Well, Barack, what do you think about this?" That's what he wants me to do, and my job is, when he makes a decision, to help him get it enforced. And the last thing, vice presidents, if they have the ability, when the president comes up with an idea and says we want to make sure every kid in America can go to college, OK?, and he introduces a law, and he sends it up to the Congress and says, "Congress, vote for this." Well, I have a lot of experience in the Congress. So what I do, I literally will go up to the Congress, and I'll sit down with the congressman from Florida, and the congressmen and senators from California, and I'll say, "Guys and women, this is what we want to do," and try to convince them to change the law to help kids get to college. That's the kind of thing a vice president does.
The only difference in what Palin and Biden said was that Biden didn't say "in charge of" the Senate. This is exactly what set Matthews off when he skewered Nancy Pfotenhauer on Hardball. And Biden's answer is also at odds with what Obama spokesperson Bill Burton told Matthews then, that he doesn't expect Biden will mix it up on policy with the Senate.
(6:28) MATTHEWS: Bill Burton, is that your understanding of the role of the vice president, they're in charge of the United States Senate, they can get in there and make policy-- would you please say something instead of standing back and letting them destroy themselves? Say something here, Bill. What do you think of this?
And Burton repeated what Matthews was saying, naming the two Constitutional functions. Then Burton added that Joe Biden brings a lot to the ticket, has a lot of experience, but he doesn't know that Biden thinks the role of the VP is the same that Sarah Palin does. And Pfotenhauer scoffed to Burton, the VP has an office in the U.S. Capitol and a tie-breaking role in the Senate, you think the VP is not going to consult with Senate Democrats or discuss policy--? "I think it's a totally false construct."
(7:35) BILL BURTON: Lots of folks have offices in the United States Capitol who don't get in there and really mix it up on policy.
NANCY PFOTENHAUER: Oh, come on, so Joe Biden, who has never been able to really control his level of engagement, and that's why [_] sequester him in Delaware, you think he's not going to discuss with his fellow Senate Democrats public policy?
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Nancy, let me tell you the bad news here, and I know you're making the best case you can. But let me tell you something, Nancy Bur--I mean, Nancy Pfotenhauer. In 1961 when Lyndon Johnson moved from being Senate Majority Leader to vice president, he thought he could continue his leadership role in the Senate. He went to one meeting of the Democratic caucus and he never went again because he was completely frozen out. They do not let anybody but a senator get involved with policy decisions. Nobody but US senators can act on the floor of the United States Senate. That's the way the Constitution works. And to get that wrong is to get something very big wrong. And I don't know why Randy Scheunemann, or whatever the smart people around, or I don't know who else, Nicole Wallace, somebody ought to go to the candidate for vice president and give them a copy of the Constitution to read. That's all it takes. It doesn't take a lot of penetrating thought. Read the job description.
NANCY PFOTENHAUER: Chris, are you actually postulating--
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Yes.
NANCY PFOTENHAUSER: --that a vice president of the United States of a certain political party does not engage with the other senators of that same political party and have public policy discussions? How can you possibly postulate that?
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me just tell you this. Let me just tell you that, and you're doing the best you can, Nancy, you wouldn't have said what the candidate just said on this tape which I've played twice, that the vice president is in charge of the US Senate. The vice president of the United States is not in charge of the US Senate. The vice president of the United States is not in charge of policy development. They're not in charge. They're the formal presiding officer with absolutely no authority, as written in the Constitution, it says will have no authority except to break a tie. And somehow in all of this trip to Washington through Niemans and through Saks and everywhere else that she stopped off, she never picked up a copy of the Constitution, and it is a problem, it is a problem, Nancy, and you know it is, we'll talk about this after the election, you know it is, you got a candidate who doesn't know the job description.
* * *
UPDATE: I missed the fact that Joe Biden's interview with Damon Weaver was taped September 2, more than a month before Palin's October 20 interview and Matthews' October 22 smackdown of Nancy Pfotenhauer. The diary I commented in (and upgraded my comment from) was posted today, and the clip I used was posted on youtube on October 23, so I thought they were current, especially since Biden was just in Florida for the interview with Barbara West, though if I had read more carefully the September information was in both the first diary and the youtube info. Nevertheless, that would explain why Biden's answer seems oblivious to the Palin VP job description controversy and Matthews' smackdown -- they hadn't happened yet. But that would not explain Burton's difference with Biden on whether or not Biden would be "mixing it up on policy" on the Hill. And it remains to be seen if Biden not mentioning the Constitutional job description "two things" will be worth Matthews' notice if he's just seeing the clip for the first time as we are.
Also worth clarification, from a comment below, whether Palin was talking to a reporter or to a second- or third-grader, ThinkProgress has more context to the Palin answer, and it's clear there that the reporter is asking her to respond to third-grader Brandon Garcia's question, which she does as if she were speaking to Brandon: "That's a great question, Brandon, and a vice president has a really great job..."