If you got the impression last week that Joe Biden has a son in the military on active duty in the Gulf, that’s exactly the impression he wanted to give. While hissing at Attorney General John Ashcroft last week about the so-called “torture memos” and the Geneva Convention, Sen. Biden made a grand stand of noting that “there’s a reason why we sign these treaties — it’s to protect my son in the military.”

Biden’s son, Beau, has been serving in the Delaware Army National Guard since last August, when he was commissioned a first lieutenant doing legal work as a judge advocate. He is serving honorably–and according to this article, he would be doing so without fanfare if not for his braying, exploitative stage dad.

Based on Sen. Biden’s backtracking on the weekend talk show circuit, it seems as though Beau may have given his shameless dad a dressing down. On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace, Biden slyly amended his remarks about his son: “I don’t have a son in the Gulf. He hasn’t been called yet.”

And even if he is, the chances of Beau ending up on a battlefield and being captured are slim to none.

Poor Beau. Listening to his dad must be, uh, torture.

Update: Great column by Jonah Goldberg pointing out that the Geneva Convention does not apply to al Qaeda.