After Mishap, Biden Teases Obama Over Teleprompter Dependence

Vice President Biden is about to find out how well his boss can take a joke.

The vice president razzed the commander-in-chief Wednesday while speaking at the Air Force Academy commencement ceremony in Colorado, poking fun at President Obama's known affinity for his Teleprompter.

Biden made the crack about Obama's crutch after a strong gust of wind blew over one of the vice president's Teleprompters. Biden was talking about Colorado's thin air at the time and when he heard the crash, he added, "and the strong winds."

Then he said: "What am I gonna tell the president when I tell him his Teleprompter is broken? What will he do then?"

The crowd laughed at the joke made at the expense of the absent president, who was in Las Vegas at the time.

Presumably, that line was not on the Teleprompter.

Luckily for Biden, one Teleprompter was still standing and the mishap was toward the end of his remarks. He recovered and thanked the cadets for their service to their country.

"As a nation, we only have one sacred obligation, only one, and that is to prepare those we ask to defend us and to care for those we send into harm's way ... because without you we would not survive," he said.

Biden has been on the receiving end of Teleprompter jokes, too. During economic stimulus remarks earlier this year, one of his former Senate colleagues, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, expressed his disappointment when the Teleprompter the vice president was using mysteriously vanished when Specter stepped to the microphone.

"What's happening to my Teleprompter, Joe? It's disappearing before my eyes," Specter said.

But it's not just his former Senate colleagues that are poking fun at him. Even the president's own Teleprompter joked about the vice president's gutsy problem.

A parody Web site called "Barack Obama's Teleprompter" blogs about the Obama administration's exploits from the point of view of the "Teleprompter of the United States."

"It wasn't me," the author says, adding not to worry because "we don't bother giving Joe a real Teleprompter. It's just two screens that plays 'Tom and Jerry' cartoons on a loop."

White House officials say this is not connected to the Obama administration.