Photos: Joe Biden Unleashed

In early March, Team Obama announced it had decided to “release the Biden“: The pugnacious, filter-free VP would be returning to the campaign trail. Soon after, the campaign posted this photo to their website next to the headline “Welcome Joe back to the trail”:

Yep. That’s the 47th vice president of the United States at a 2012 campaign event, acting out a one-liner from CSI: Miami. Or preparing to gun down a yak from 200 yards away with the power of his mind bullets. Or simply striking a pose that might be described as “Bidening.” The Internet jubilantly had its way with the imageGrist blogger David Roberts dubbed it the most “Joe Biden-y” photo ever taken.

Here are some more photos of Joe Biden being Biden—or at least doing a pretty good impression of The Onion version of himself:

Biden, at his part-time job as vice president of the United States of I-Wear-These-Aviators-Better-Than-You-Do.

...doing his best Jack-Nicholson-face.

In May 2011, probably saying something like, “Hey remember that time four days ago when we annihilated Bin Laden? That was pretty sweet.”

Hey, remember that time four days ago when

Yet another in a series of photos of Biden cracking up the president. Here, he hangs up his Aviators to play Angry Birds last July, debt-ceiling crisis be damned.

Wreaking vengeance on thieving pigs who remind him of Bin Laden.

Showing up in Kandahar looking exactly like Steven Seagal in Machete while Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) cowers behind him.

Lindsey Graham

A bromantic high-five. 

Needs more aviators.

In Iraq. Wearing the Aviators. Of course.

Iraq

Ignoring a small child. And possibly telling the president a dirty joke.

Too damn cool

Biden and Obama, blowing off running the country for a few minutes of taxpayer-funded dicking around.

This is technically taxpayer funded.

 Oh hey Biden. Are you just bidin’ your time? Or is that a UFO you see out there?

Image credits: TaraGiancaspro/Flickr; Pete Souza/The White House; Pete Souza/The White House; US Navy Petty Officer Aramis X. Ramirez/isafmedia; Pete Souza/The White House; The US Army/Flickr; Pete Souza/The White House; Pete Souza/The White House; Pete Souza/The White House

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate