I'd like to agree that Python would be better, since I'm partial to the language myself, but I really don't know enough about VB to say.

But ...

It's boneheaded design that will turn the toddler off biking completely.

The reaction of the people taking the course seemed to be, "hey, this programming stuff isn't so bad after all." They only did the simplest of tasks (can't quite remember what any more), and VB ended up being quite sufficient. Of course, you're be correct in thinking that very, very few of them will go on to be programmers. But I'm don't think you can blame that on either the language or the course: none of them were inclined that way to begin with.

So, yes, VB may not lay the best foundation for learning other languages, and it may not be a good tool for serious development, but it seems to get non-techie types past their fear of programming just fine.

I'd suspect that Kernighan considered other languages for the course. He probably even considered Python. It would be interesting to hear what, specifically, his reasons for choosing VB over (languages x, y, z) were.