Q: Why did Obama Pick VP To Take Lead in Picking New Supreme Court Justice? A: Biden May Be a Rule-Breaker Who Stands Up While Riding on Amtrak, Lies About Where He Eats Breakfast, Cheated in College, and Plagiarizes Nearly Every Time He Opens His Yap…

…But goddamnit, he gets results!

Or something like that. Joe Biden is the head adviser to the guy who is actually going to draw up the list of the folks who might replace Justice David Souter, who is retiring after being placed in the kid's section (again!) in the Supreme Court's secret vodka bar.

Biden, who cheated his way through law school, is answering "nuanced questions about both individuals and timing" for Obama, which really sounds like a task Michael Corleone would give to Fredo.

But what's the key to Biden, to this fascinating person? Men want to be him. Woment want to be with him. What makes Biden tick? What make him clamp his disturbingly white choppers down like an android cowboy in Westworld chomping on Richard Benjamin's neck?

"He is an enthusiast," says one Biden watcher, unconsciously channeling a Seinfeld episode during which a character in a novel, Billy Mumphrey, is done in by his "unbridled enthusiasm." And Biden's health-conscious, too. He won't even eat next to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar anymore and he's switching to Salvodoran beer until the swine flu thing plays out (which should take about another fifteen minutes).

Biden has a lot on his  plate already:

Biden also has been put in charge of the administration's $787 billion economic stimulus plan. He has traveled the country to tout the legislation's merits, rubbed shoulders with union members, met with educators and talked to local officials. Biden also heads the president's "middle-class" task force, which is looking at ways to reverse economic trends that in the past eight years have left many workers struggling as the costs of health care, education and other essentials have risen faster than their incomes.

More here. If he climbs this mountain, we should suspend the customary wait-and-forget period and immediately carve his mush on Vice President's mountain, right alongside Aaron Burr, Andrew Taylor, Henry Wallace, Spiro Agnew, and Dan Quayle.

Once again, Vice President Biden, we salute you, a real man of political genius: