Former Republican turned Barack Obama backer Jim Piccillo made quite the gaffe when introducing vice-presidential hopeful Joe Biden today. Said Piccillo: "…No matter your party, gender, race, or religion, please help me today in welcoming the next vice president of the United States: John McCain!" How embarrassing!

The real Joe Biden, meanwhile, has spent much his day taking on Republican running mate Sarah Palin, who did nothing this week when her supporters suggested Obama be killed and called him a terrorist. Said Biden this morning on Today:

I watched the news and I heard a couple people hollering from the audience semi-vile things about 'terrorists,' things like that. The idea that a leading American politician who might be vice president of the United States would not just stop mid-sentence and turn and condemn that — it's just a slippery slope, it's a place that we shouldn't be going.

Later, at the University of South Florida, Biden again took on Palin:

To have the vice presidential candidate raise the most outrageous inferences, the one John McCain's campaign is condoning, is simply wrong. They are attacking Barack Obama in the ugliest of ways. This is beyond disappointing. This is wrong.

Biden saved some energy for McCain, of course, and blasted the Arizona Senator's support for President Bush. Borrowing a line from Bob Casey, Biden said, ""You can't call yourself a maverick when all you've ever been is a sidekick." The Democrat also described McCain as "an angry man, lurching from one position to another."