'Gray Lady' Profiles Onion, Blogosphere Points, Laughs

The Onion likes writing parodies about Joe Biden, Biden reportedly likes reading them, and the New York Times takes note of it all with a story today headlined "The Onion Strikes Comic Gold With Biden Spoofs" that you can read here. Or you can read the bewildered reaction from the blogosphere to the story itself:

• "I mean, did they invent some new kind of 'meta' and not tell me about it?" wonders Alex Balk at the Awl after reading the Times piece. "Anti-meta? So confused!"

• "I wonder what the Times is gunning for here?" asks Joshua Green in the Atlantic. "Trying to shake the 'Gray Lady' moniker? Nervous that Huffington Post is challenging its traffic? It's sort of like watching a sad old man buy a Trans Am in a desperate bid for youth..."
• Speaking of Trans Ams, HuffPo tweaks the Times for prominently posting on its homepage a Photoshopped image from the Onion of a shirtless Biden washing one in the White House driveway. And helpfully pointing out that it's not really the veep. See it here.

The Times includes this quote near the end of the piece from an "amused and dumbfounded" Biden spokesman: “Let me get this straight. You want to interview the vice president about stories about him in The Onion? Well, I’ll give you credit for trying.” (More The Onion stories.)