Was Obama right that Biden never referred to Tea Party members as terrorists?

The Los Angeles Times reviews the evidence here:

In an unusual move within the fraternities of Washington journalism, Politico, which broke the original hot story, issued a reaffirmation of the piece Wednesday, apparently in response to another Washington news organization questioning Politico's sources as "dubious."

To refresh your memory, hours after Biden met behind closed doors with unhappy congressional Democrats during the heated talks, Politico reported that the vice president of the United States had agreed with Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle's characterization of the House's new GOP majority and said, "They have acted like terrorists."

Biden tried to make a joke over his "effing" gaffe. But not this one, not when his boss is bemoaning hyperbolic Republicans.

Politico describes its reporting on the incident, saying it had five sources describe the scene and notes that Biden never asked for a correction or retraction and issued an artful dodge of a response.

The veracity is important here because the Obama administration is trying to blame the tea party's unreasonable ideological rabble for the unprecedented credit downgrade by Standard & Poor's, not the White House's wanton spending or unwillingness to make entitlement cuts.

It's an important part of Obama's planned 2012 campaign meme to pin blame for the nation's ongoing economic stagnation on Republicans, who just took over the House in January -- and to shield the lopsided congressional majorities of Democrats since 2007 that included both Obama and Biden for half that time. . . .