Summing up Biden, Pew finds 'good' edges out 'idiot'

Americans asked to sum up Vice President Joe Biden in a word had two favorites: "good" and "idiot."

At 43 and 40 responses respectively, those two words cropped up twice as frequently as their closest rivals, "ok" and "vice president," in a Pew survey of 1,008 Americans.

Overall, more respondents offered a negative descriptor, 38 percent, than a positive one, 28 percent.

Even Democrats were cool on Biden. They were slightly more likely to describe him with a neutral word than with a good one.

And in another recent Pew survey, Paul Ryan was slightly more likely to provoke a positive word (37 percent) than a negative one (35 percent).

But just because many Americans don't think much of Biden's intelligence (buffoon, stupid, clown and incompentent all registered several responses), doesn't mean they don't like him. Only five respondents ventured that Biden was "bad."