What a jackass.

Joe Biden, the vice president of the United States.

What a jackass.

For all the talk about his mom and dad, he didn’t represent them very well. He may have found the plastic surgeon and the tooth whitener and the hair plugger, but he lost his manners.

And if one thing came out of last night’s vice presidential debate, it is that Joe Biden has no manners.

He’s a rude, condescending jerk.

The laughing, the interrupting, the sighing.

If my seventh-grader acted that way, I’d take him out behind the woodshed. If a business colleague acted that way, I’d find someplace else to work.

After 36 years in the Senate, two failed presidential campaigns and four years in the vice presidency, this is how he acts. At a stage of life when most people have developed grace and magnanimity, Joe Biden acts like a punk kid who’s all arrogance and hot air.

The question of last night’s debate is: Did that turn America’s stomach?

From a substance standpoint, Biden did far better than his boss. And he may have done marginally better than his opponent.

Paul Ryan warmed to the task, but his presentation sometimes seemed detached and rote. His much-touted knowledge advantage didn’t come into play. Though he made good points, and seemed poised to make more, he was repeatedly interrupted.

You knew Paul Ryan was saying something worth hearing when Joe Biden did his best to make sure you didn’t hear it. On purpose or not, Biden’s antics on the split screen drew more attention than Ryan’s pronouncements and arguments.

Those distractions hurt. What is uncertain is whether they hurt Ryan or Biden.

That will mostly be determined by the perspective of the viewer. Probably the vice president’s behavior worked well for committed Democrats – the so-called base. Mockery and disrespect are part and parcel of the Democrat approach to disagreement, and no doubt he earned a few hoots and high fives.

But to folks who wanted to hear a debate, to folks whose social upbringing and sense of propriety look down on laughing in someone’s face, the distraction may have hurt.

He was like an adolescent craving attention, and getting it in all the wrong ways.

He acted like an arrogant prig with nothing but contempt for his opponent and the ideology and people he represents. It was a smarmy, bullying act.

Then he turned his Kenny Rogers eyes to the camera and asked America who it trusted. He seemed confident in the answer, impressed with his own history and conduct in a way that others probably weren’t.

It was a troubling demonstration.

We’ve learned two things in two weeks about two men. The president is an idiot and the vice president is a jackass.