Vice Presidents are great for providing balance in an administration. For example, Barack Obama has spent this week successfully reassuring the country that there's no need to panic over swine flu. And just so the message from The White House doesn't appear too one-sided, VP Joe Biden went on TV today and basically told all Americans to hide out alone in the forest and live off their own urine until further notice.

“I would tell members of my family — and I have — I wouldn’t go anywhere in confined places now,” Biden said on NBC’s “Today” show.. “It’s not that it’s going to Mexico. It’s [that] you’re in a confined aircraft. When one person sneezes, it goes all the way through the aircraft. That’s me. …

“So, from my perspective, what it relates to is mitigation. If you’re out in the middle of a field when someone sneezes, that’s one thing. If you’re in a closed aircraft or closed container or closed car or closed classroom, it’s a different thing.”

As one might expect, the idea of crippling the airlines and subways didn't go over very well with Biden's handlers, so a "clarifying" statement was quickly released. I don't know, something about it being opposite day.

So, no need for alarm. As long as we don't fly to Mexico, we can all feel free to resume riding the subway and sneezing in each other's mouths.

The March issue of Esquire features an interview with everyone's favorite non-vice-president, Sarah Palin, and some juicy new quotes landed on the magazine's website this afternoon.

Here's what she had to say about all those influential bloggers who influence the media by, um, not revealing their names or any sort of nicknames or identifying handles or even an email address, probably…

"Bored, anonymous, pathetic bloggers who lie annoy me."

Not nearly as much as moronic, semi-literate, reactionary politicians annoy me.

Although I will give her this. Ben Smith, that's obviously a fake name.

President-elect Barack Obama won't be sworn in for another week, but according to Politico, some are already calling the 2012 election for his nonexistent opponent.

White House reporters for The New York Times predict that the market collapse will force President-elect Barack Obama to abandon for now many of his campaign promises.

If his stimulus plan "doesn’t work out, he may very well be a one-term president," said Jeff Zeleny, who covered Obama's campaign. "It's hard to imagine that he could be reelected if the economy’s in the exact same position four years from now."

Too true! After all, you can't expect to win a second term if you don't keep your campaign promises.

President Bush knows what I'm talking about. He's spent his entire presidency working to fullfill his campaign pledges to destroy the economy, overextend the military and take a dump on a panda on live TV (there are still eight days left!).

Sure the Democrats took back the White House and increased their majorities in the House and Senate this year, but what about Saxby Chambliss and Joseph Cao and Rod Blagojevich and Charlie Rangell? Those stories all bode well for the GOP, right? Which is why at 4:36 this morning, Politico posted a story entitled GOP hopes rise, Dems hit rough patch.

To put it simply, it was a great time to be a Republican. Gains in Congress were punctuated by corruption across the aisle. Sadly though, it was not to last. Because at 4:40am, a mere four minutes later, Politico then posted a story called The Great (GOP) Depression.

Well, it's probably for the best. Because as with all things, it's better to begin comebacks in moderation. Maybe in a few months, Republicans will be able to celebrate an entire hour of good news. But until then, on their behalf, please join me in a heartfelt chant of "Four More Minutes! Four More Minutes! Four More Minutes!"

You thought the election was over, but you were wrong, except now you actually are right. According to Politico, Missouri has been called!

Missouri finally, goes for McCain.

The Republican won the state by a bit more than 4,000 votes.

That would leave Obama at 365 electoral votes.

Now, on the one hand, you've got those 365 electoral votes for Barack Obama. But on the other hand, Missouri has gone to the victor in 25 of the past 26 elections.

So you're either ignoring numbers or history. They say those who ignore history are forced to repeat it, but they don't say anything about those who ignore numbers, so I'm going to go ahead and call the election for John McCain.

UPDATE: Politico has added a correction, pointing out that state officials have yet to formally call Missouri, so there remains a sliver of possibility that Barack Obama will be our next president.

It's amazing how the Beltway politics/media merry-go-round feeds upon itself.

In just a few hours yesterday, the following vicious cycle occurred…

* In Monday morning's paper, The New York Times runs a story reporting on McCain campaign manager Rick Davis' consulting work for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which netted him $2 million.

* Davis and McCain spokesman Steve Schmidt hastily organize a conference call with political reporters, in which they accuse the Times of being "an organization that has made a decision to cast aside it's journalistic integrity to advocate for the defeat of John McCain."

* Blogger Ben Smith from Politico, who was in on the conference call, immediately writes a blog piece criticizing the McCain camp for several inaccurate statements made during the call.

* McCain spokesman Brian Rogers announces that Politico is also "in the tank" for Barack Obama.

* The New York Times writes an online news article about how the McCain camp "lashed out at The New York Times on Monday, accusing it of dropping its journalistic standards."

* Bill Keller, the executive editor of the Times, does an interview with Politico defending his paper.

* Hundreds of media sources, from The Wall Street Journal to The Atlantic to The Washington Post report on the brouhaha.

* Everyone takes a break and has lunch.

I'm not sure what happened after that because I got a really bad headache and had to lie down.