Osama bin Laden to al-Qaeda: 'Don't bother assassinating Joe Biden'

According to ProPublica, the Obama administration is briefing that Barack Obama was bin Laden’s the “top target” (no surprise there) while “military chiefs like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the defense secretary” were also major scalps.

But Joe Biden’s scalp (hair plugs and all)? Apparently, not so much. A counterterrorism official said: “There is a note indicating that the vice president is not an important target because that position has less weight.”

To be fair, it seems that Uncle Joe was not mentioned by name and the al-Qaeda leader tied the comment to the constitutional weakness of the vice-presidency rather than the antics of the garrulous current occupant.

But one does suspect that bin Laden might have rather liked to have got Dick Cheney.