The result can be a pomposity that is almost buffoonish in a world where France is no longer a front-rank power.

CNN: HE BRITISH FORCES LANDED

Yet whereas Mr Cheney was seen as the grey eminence behind the sometimes buffoonish Mr Bush, Mr Biden seems a cheery backslapper compared to the professorial Mr Obama.

ECONOMIST: More vice than virtue

Truth is, America's tax burden--after you add up state and local and pile on the cost of complying with our buffoonish 54, 000-page tax code--is not much less than Europe's.

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