It's not clear yet whether Joe Biden's frozen custard clip has legs or has run out of steam after a couple days.
But either way, the saga of the vice president and Kopp's manager Scott Borkin is another one of those silly stories that seem pop up more frequently all the time, driven by a video clip.
If you don't know the story, here's the short version, complete with video: Biden was campaigning with Sen. Russ Feingold Saturday and dropped in at Kopp's, a pretty conventional photo op for pols coming to this part of the world.
Handed a cone, the veep asks, "What do we owe you?"
Borkin answers: "Don't worry, it's on us." Then he gets funny, adding, "Lower our taxes, we'll call it even."
By any measure, that's a smart-ass comment. He wasn't literally asking for taxes to be cut, since it's unlikely that anybody would change government policy in exchange for custard.
The shocker, of course, is that Biden called it for what it was.
"Why don't you say something nice instead of being a smart-ass all the time?" he says on camera.
First off, I don't think anybody was out of line here.
We live in a democratic society, and if you want to be a smart-ass with the vice president it's your right. Some of my best friends are smart-asses, and I've been accused of being one myself.
But if you're going
to be a smart-ass, you always have to be ready for the reaction of
somebody who doesn't expect it whether its the vice president or the guy on the
barstool next to you. And Biden didn't exactly bite his head off.
As for the veep, I'd rather see a pol respond honestly, than be a phony. And that holds for Republicans as well as Democrats.
Of course, my opinion doesn't really matter here. What's interesting is how Saturday's non-incident is being used.
Borkin was on Monday morning's "Fox & Friends," on Fox News Channel.
"He is famous for making inappropriate comments," said co-host Steve Doocy of the vice president.
Later Monday morning on WTMJ-AM (620), Charlie Sykes entered the frozen custard fray, stumbling over the word "gaffe-meister" to label the veep, and then played the audio of the Fox News report.
Sykes suggested somebody come up with a T-shirt reading "another smart-ass for lower taxes," and then opened up the phone lines asking whether, indeed, Borkin was a smart-ass.
One caller suggests that a casual vice president merits less respect.
"What was Joe Biden really saying to this little person?" asked Sykes.
"How dare you?" was the caller's answer.
"This hit a little bit of a nerve, didn't it?" Sykes suggested a couple minutes later.
Whether it did or it didn't doesn't really matter. For those on the anti-Biden side of the political divide, it's a bigger deal than those on the other side.
But if this whole incident had come from Biden's predecessor, it would be a big story on MSNBC, rather than Fox News, and the vocal anti-Dick Cheney crowd would be just as exercised.
And it would still be just another silly summer story.
On TV: In an early Christmas present to Packers fans, HBO says it will debut a new documentary on legendary coach Vince Lombardi. HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg said in a statement, "There isn’t a football fan alive who has not heard of Vince or does not know his famous line, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing,’ but how much do people really know about this complicated genius?"
- "The Office" star Steve Carell is again saying he wants off the show by the end of the year. This time, it's EW.com's Michael Ausiello who's quoting Carrell as saying, "it's a good time to move on."
- Former CNN anchor Daryn Kagan was watching her old employer Monday, following coverage of the Senate hearing for Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan (no relation.) Tweets the former CNNer: "Funny to look up at CNN screen and see "Kagan" plastered all over it. Been awhile since they had to type that! :)"
- ABC has ordered a dozen more episodes of "Pretty Little Liars," bringing the first season up to a network-length 22 episodes.
Cindy Huber returns to the air: Long-time Milwaukee radio voice Cindy Huber is dusting off her cowboy boots and resurfacing at the new "Big Buck Country" format on WZBK-FM (106.9) in a noon to 6 p.m. weekday shift starting today.
Program director Lauri Jones says it will be a live show.
Huber will be at the station's tent at Summerfest in the evenings this week to greet listeners, if you want to welcome her back personally.
She was last heard on WLDB-FM (93.3), where her afternoon drive-time job ended when program director Stan Atkinson moved from mornings to allow Jane Matenaer to join the morning show alongside CV (Carol Vonn). She's also worked at WMYX-FM (99.1) and the old WKTI-FM.
"Big Buck Country" is the classic country incarnation of the station formerly known as WJZX-FM, when it played a smooth jazz format. It is exchanging the old call letters for WZBK.
Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.
A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.
In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.
When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.
