Who Was the Bigger State of the Union Distraction: Boehner or Biden?
Two body parts belonging to the two gentlemen sitting near the president overshadowed much of Barack Obama’s State of the Union address. We speak not of John Kerry’s jowls, nor Lindsey Graham’s “John + Lindsey = BFF”–tattooed arm, nor John McCain’s “Lindsey + John = BFF”–tattooed arm, but Joe Biden’s conspicuously irritated eye and John Boehner’s offensively underutilized legs and feet.
Before the speech even began, NBC’s Brian Williams informed viewers that Biden was suffering from a scratched cornea—an affliction we know from personal ophthalmological experience to be extremely painful and often the cause of ignorant “pink eye” jokes even though it's a totally different thing. (Grow up, nerds.) Biden’s eye has been bloody and frightening since at least two days ago, when he was photographed wearing glasses at a speech in Pennsylvania. The cause of the injury: a rogue contact lens, which we also know from personal ophthalmological experience to be a euphemism for “sleeping in eyeliner for a week straight because sometimes it’s great to just wake up with your eyeliner already done.” Throughout Obama’s address, Boehner was poking and prodding at his face, removing and replacing his glasses, and closing his eyelid in such a way that it was very fun to imagine he was actually salaciously winking. A pained wink to you too, Mr. Vice President!
In descending order down the human form, we come next to John Boehner’s lower torso, which was very noticeably glued to his chair throughout even the most obvious applause lines. This wasn’t a particular shock during the president’s mentions of equality for gay service members (boo!), raising the minimum wage to $9 (hiss!), and climate change (get off the stage!) but Boehner didn’t even stand for a gimme applause-line like, say, protecting voting rights. Put it this way: Boehner didn’t even stand to applaud a 102-year-old woman who was there celebrating, simply, participatory democracy.
What would make Boehner stand? He definitely stood up at the end to leave—a shock given our expectation that he would remain seated and wheel his rolly chair through the House chamber, through the parking lot, and down the street, never to be seen or heard from again.
http://www.vanityfair.com/online/daily/2013/02/Who-Was-the-Bigger-State-of-the-Union-Distraction-Boehner-or-Biden
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a rogue contact lens, which we also know from personal ophthalmological experience to be a euphemism for “sleeping in eyeliner for a week straight because sometimes it’s great to just wake up with your eyeliner already done.”
