Fox News White House Correspondent Ed Henry has already written the worst article in American history, so why not throw the dumbest question in American history onto his resume as well? THE BACKGROUND: There has been all sorts of Hot Buzz (John McCain has been babbling during one of his Ambien trips) about whether Joe Biden will be dropped from the ticket after saying the words "chains." So here's what Ed Henry asked Jay Carney at Thursday's White House press conference: "Let's just settle it, once and for all, all of this speculation -- this is the ticket, Obama/Biden?"

Dave Weigel offers trenchant analysis of this dumb question:

What's "all of this speculation?" If you watch the earlier parts of the briefing, you learn that the speculation comes from Sarah Palin and John McCain, neither of whom are Democrats with particular interest or influence in the process of nominating a Democratic veep. In 2008, there was considerable (and even then, overblown) buzz about angry Democratic delegates who wanted Hillary Clinton to be the veep nominee. There is none of that now. We know because any story like that would rise with rocket speed to the top of the cable news pile. Henry was asking about "speculation" that does not exist in any meaningful form, and allowing that the speculation was kicked off because the vice president said something that no elected Democrats have taken issue with.

The other thing we'd add is, is there really much doubt that Joe Biden has been a fine vice presidential choice for Obama? Our litmus test here is basically, "Does the vice presidential choice fundamentally fuck everything up for the top of the ticket?" and he doesn't, so that's that.

[Slate]