Although this didn't get a huge amount of attention from most mainstream media outlets, the folks at CNN were all over the story covering it many times throughout the day.
One of the network's most prominent hosts, Larry King, addressed Biden's vulgarity with his guests Tuesday evening.
Actor Stephen Baldwin responded, "Larry, the Bible says, 'Out of the mouth comes the things that are within our heart.' So I'm not surprised that the vice president's a potty mouth."
He continued, "And quite frankly, I think it's official today, Barack Obama is the greatest gangster to ever come out of Chicago" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, h/t PoliJam):
LARRY KING, HOST: Stephen Baldwin, the vice president dropped the F-bomb earlier today at the White House signing ceremony. He may have meant it as a private comment. It was caught on audio and video. Let's check it out and get your comment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
(APPLAUSE)
BIDEN: This is a big (EXPLETIVE DELETED) deal.
OBAMA: Thank you, everybody. Thank you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Did that offend you, Stephen?
STEPHEN BALDWIN, ACTOR: Well, you know, Larry, the Bible says "out of the mouth comes the things that are within our heart." So I'm not surprised that the vice president's a potty mouth. And quite frankly, I think it's official today, Barack Obama is the greatest gangster to ever come out of Chicago. I just think it's amazing.
KING: Did you agree on the potty mouth thing when Vice President Cheney also used similar expression a while back?
BALDWIN: Sure, Larry, yeah. He is a potty mouth too. Yeah, he is a potty mouth too. But you know what's funny? I think it's interesting. I'll say what Mr. Romney wasn't willing to say. And that's that Mr. Obama's a liar. He is purely a liar. He's gone and done something, Larry, where half of the country didn't agree with it. So if you say when you're running you're going to do one thing --
KING: Stephen, to be fair.
BALDWIN: Go ahead.
KING: Many didn't agree because they thought it didn't go far enough. So it wasn't just the anti-against it on the right.
BALDWIN: But when you don't -- when you don't get one Republican vote? That's not -- remember I was on your show last time, Larry. We said is the government broken? The government is broken. This is clearly a definition of that. How can a broken government fix a broken health care system, Larry?
KING: All right.
The early indications are that apart from CNN, Biden's F-bomb has received less media attention than former Vice President Dick Cheney's expletive directed at Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) in 2004.
It will be interesting to see if that trend continues, or if press outlets are glom on to Biden's indiscretion with the same zeal they did Cheney's.
Stay tuned.
