VIDEO-Joe Biden thinks 'Africa' is a country, not a continent | Mail Online

By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor

Published: 19:42 EST, 5 August 2014 | Updated: 02:20 EST, 6 August 2014

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Vice President Joe Biden wants everyone to know that he has high hopes for the 'nation' of Africa.

Biden isn't just a walking gaffe machine – he's a walking gaffe top-ten list. So when he goofed at Tuesday's U.S.-Africa Business Forum, and there was no F-bomb involved, it didn't make headlines.

But gaffe he did, in front of 50 world leaders and their entourages at the event held on the sidelines of President Barack Obama's U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit.

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Gaffe #4,281: US Vice President Joe Biden told the US-Africa Business Forum on Tuesday that the 'nation' of Africa should be among the world's great economic powers

Africa is a continent made up of 54 separate countries, including island nations off its coastlines.

'If Africa's governance and institutions can put its people in a position commensurate with their possibilities, the sky is the limit,' the veep said Tuesday. 'I mean, it is limitless'

 

​'There's no reason the nation of Africa cannot and should not join the ranks of the world's most prosperous nations in the near term, in the decades ahead. There is simply no reason.'

The skinny-dipping, party guest-groping bumbler who's one heartbeat away from the presidency once chaired the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.

Not impressed: Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg sits with (from right to left) Djbouti President Ismail Omar Guelleh, South Sudan President Salva Kiir Mayardit, and other African leaders during the U.S.-Africa Business Forum in Washington

Biden met with Nigeria's President Goodluck Jonathan at the U.S. Africa Leaders Summit on Tuesday

Biden has been an active participant in this week's summit. He met Tuesday with South African President Jacob Zuma, Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki and Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan on the margins of the event.

He will also attend a dinner tonight at the White House honoring all the African leaders. The event will also include several non-political luminaries.

The Obama administration said in a statement on Tuesday that guests will include Essence magazine Editor-in-Chief Vanessa Bush, 'Orange is the New Black' star Uzo Aduba, '12 Years a Slave' actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, NASCAR driver Jeff Gordon, Olympic marathoner Meb Keflezighi, sculptor Wangechi Mutu, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and actor Robert DeNiro and his wife Grace.

High-powered business leaders, all of whom pledge Africa relief funds from their corporate philanthropies,will include NextGen Solar president Mayank Bhargava, Coca-Cola president Muhtar Kent, Mastercard CEO Ajay Banga, Wal-Mart president Doug McMillon, Marriott president Arne Sorenson and IBM president Virginia Rometty.

Biden, a White House source said Tuesday, is not expected to speak at the glitzy event.

That may be just as well.

Everybody loves Joe: The veep got a laugh out of White House budget director Shaun Donovan during his ceremonial swearing-in ceremony on Tuesday

Joe Biden calls 'Africa' a country, not a continent

It was just four years ago that he noted in a diplomatic face-palm moment how Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen's mother had 'lived in Long Island for ten years or so' before her death.

'God rest her soul,' Biden said somberly, before realizing that  'wait – your mom’s still ... your mom’s still alive. Your dad passed. God bless her soul.'

In 2012 he made the sign of the cross while on stage to address a group of more than 1,600 conservative rabbis in Atlanta.

Reporters guffawed later that year when he tried to capture the spirit of President Theodore Roosevelt's famous 'Speak softly' philosophy, by noting that 'the president has a big stick. I promise you.'

It brought back memories of a 2008 photo-op outside Biden's home where he told journalists that he had just returned from 'a successful dump,' which turned out to be a trip to a nearby landfill.

Two months later during an Ohio campaign speech, Biden criticized then-GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain for what he called a 'last-minute economic plan' that did 'nothing to tackle the number-one job facing the middle class.'

'It happens to be, as Barack says, a three-letter word: jobs. J-O-B-S, jobs.'

Several of Biden's most cringe-worthy moments have riled conservatives who say their own political stars would have been pilloried in print and on television if they had made similar comments.

'You cannot go to a 7-11 or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent,' he told an Indian-American man in 2006, with a C-SPAN camera rolling.

'I'm not joking.'

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