As has been reported in the media Vice President Biden has claimed that he scolded President Bush in the Oval Office while former Bush aides (including Karl Rove) say the story is a fake. This is an interesting debate for me in that I am not a Rove fan (indeed I blame him for badly hurting the GOP) but at the same time I am not particularly trusting of these kind of claims from Biden (given his past history of gaffes and exaggerations).

In this case though I would have to lean towards Rove over Biden only because of a point made by another Bush aide on MSNBC. He pointed out that it would be very unusual for a President of either party to meet with anyone, let alone a member of Congress, without staff members in the room. The aide tactfully said it was to make sure the President had the information he needed but the real reason is, of course, to have someone there to back up your story.

Indeed I would assume it would be unusual for any meeting of officials in Washington to occur without staff members around to back up their bosses story. Biden would certainly know this so I am not sure why he would make the claim, other than he tends to shoot from the hip