So Joe Biden has now second-guessed Barack Obama on his choice for vice president, his campaign commercials, and his decision not to check with Senator Feinstein before selecting Leon Panetta to head the CIA:

Vice President-elect Joe Biden — offering one last defense of the institution he’s inhabited for three decades — conceded the Obama transition team made a “mistake” in not consulting the Senate before tapping Leon Panetta to head the CIA.

“I’m still a Senate man and I always think this way,” he told reporters in the Capitol. “I think it’s always good to talk to the requisite members of Congress…”

“I think it was just a mistake,” Biden said of the transition team’s failure to check in with Feinstein and outgoing Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W. Va.), who was also miffed.

Biden is famous for speaking his mind when he’d be better off staying quiet. A Senator can get away with that; for a Vice President, it’s harder.

It has to be annoying for Obama to see Biden questioning his judgment and that of his staff so prominently. It almost comes across as if Biden is trying to show up the rest of the Obama team: ‘If you’d just listen to me, Barack, we wouldn’t be making these mistakes.’

Exit question: can Obama demote Biden any further from the levers of power?