Joe Biden: 'My wife was with Prince Harry. I'm a little worried – you know what I mean?'

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/17/joe-biden-prince-harry

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Surrounded by secret service agents and Catholic activists from Iowa, Joe Biden was about to walk away. We had just been conducting a short interview as he shook hands along the rope line at a event with Nuns on the Bus, a group that travel the country in an effort to increase voter turnout.

“By the way, I’ve been reading the English press the last four or five days,” he said. Presuming he was about to deliver a news-making quote about Thursday’s Scottish referendum, I replied: “It is a big moment, isn’t it?”

“No, not just the vote tomorrow,” he said. “But my wife was with Prince Harry at the Invictus Games. And I read in the Guardian, or one of them, and it says – I’m paraphrasing – everywhere Prince Harry went, he had this blonde woman on his arm. The vice-president’s wife! I’m a little worried here, you know what I mean?”

The vice-president, everyone in Washington knows, has a propensity to put his foot in his mouth. Earlier on Wednesday he was forced to apologise for using the word “shylock” in a recent speech.

Biden appeared to be carefully avoiding controversy when a woman on the rope line asked him about Keystone XL – the controversial pipeline that Barack Obama had repeatedly put off authorising, much to the fury of rank-and-file Democrats.

“I am vice-president,” he said, emphasising “vice”, and placing his hand on her cheek. “So what I’ve learned to do, is not step on the president’s lines. I do have an opinion. I’ve made it clear to the president what my opinion is. But I am vice-president.”

He also appeared to stop himself from endorsing a no vote in the Scottish referendum. “I think the United Kingdom ... look I’ve learned from Scottish friends the last thing to do is suggest to a Scot what he should do.”

But Biden could not seem to resist a dig at Harry’s reputation as something of a womaniser. In response, reassurance seemed the best tactic. “I don’t think you need to be too worried,” I said.