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How many insults and public chidings can one vice president endure?
By SARA K. SMITH

Updated 6:17 AM EST, Wed, Feb 11, 2009

One of these days, Joe Biden is going to snap

Think of the recent barrage of humiliations this poor creature has had to endure. Six months ago, he agreed to serve as vice president to a man he once very memorably referred to as "articulate and bright and clean." Then he maybe overdid it on the Botox before the vice presidential debate, which was understandable given the good looks of his opponent. But after that fatal miscalculation, Biden tolerated weeks of mockery for his creepily unlined forehead and tilted eyes.

Things didn't get any better from there, and at every step of the way, Handsome Barry Obama has stood quietly off to the side, alternately laughing at or undermining him. Joe Biden assured an audience of Democrats that a young, untested Obama will face a huge international crisis early in his presidency, and Obama had to hold a press conference on national security and assure the public that “I think Joe, sometimes, engages in rhetorical flourishes.” Not very supportive!

The next awful humiliation arrived shortly after President Obama's historic inauguration, when Biden joked about John Roberts messing up the oath of office. It was a funny joke, sort of! And yet Obama just stood there, scowling with dignified annoyance. Biden later apologized, like a chump.

One more time he tried to play the good soldier for his president, offering some much-needed straight talk on the heap of problems facing America today, and what happened? Three days after Biden bravely admitted that "there's still a 30 percent chance we're going to get it wrong," President Obama laughed it off and suggested he had no idea what "it" even was. This casual dismissal came in front of a massive television audience -- more viewers saw Obama's press conference on Monday night than watched the American Idol season premiere, which means Biden can't just wish this embarrassment away.

And that is why Joe Biden will erupt in a geyser of rage one of these days, and punch Barack Obama during one of his fancy live national press conferences. Joe Biden is a statesman, for goodness' sake, a guy who could have been Secretary of State, a man who served basically his entire adult life in the Senate -- an intellectual heavyweight, a career public servant, and a serious man. So look out, America. He is on his last nerve.

Adolescent psychology expert and anger management counselor Sara K. Smith writes for NBC and Wonkette.