Incompetent Associate makes me look bad

Hey guys, I'm a first-year at a BB who has recently had the pleasure of working with a terribly inefficient MBA-Associate who joined the team. He joined normal cycle and I joined a few months earlier due to me coming from non-banking. I picked up some IB relevant skills in my last gig so I think I'm pretty good at what I do. The problem is, this guy isn't and he just doesn't seem to "get it" either. 

I was sort of recently told by our staffer that I have to work with him a ton because we are cross-staffed on a bunch of various projects (live, non-live, coverage). Every time we have to make something for our VP or MD, he always always has shitty input and refuses to not keep it in. It's to the point that he adds stuff to a slide and I will ask him *politely* that we should perhaps do without it, but he just says, "Ah let's keep it in, I think it adds value". To which the VP always replies with asking us to remove. I'm always in the CC line so it makes me look bad. It's gotten to a point where I know exactly what the VP will ask for, I create that version even before the ASO turns in whatever garbage edits he will make and then have it ready for when the VP inevitably wants it. The VP has literally replied, "hey guys, we really should be catching this at this point" to certain things I explicitly told him we shouldn't include. But the ASO seems just unfazed by it and refuses to change his ways, nor does he acknowledge that I talk about those very changes way before we get comments. 

I'm not the kind of person to go behind a team mates back and just honestly tell the VP that I am thinking along the same lines he is, but the ASO just throws a spanner in the works, nor do I feel comfortable one-offing the VP with my versions. I think that's just setting myself up for failure. I have had one-on-one's with the ASO requesting him to just roll with some stuff I've made but he shrugs it off saying, "I will be completely honest with you, I see banking as a long term career and I want to develop leadership skills so I have to keep my guidance and man the ship". I even had one-on-one's with my staffer who said that the team is a little lean with a couple people leaving and everyone has stuff they're working on so I just need to soldier through.

I'm afraid this is a bad representation of what I am doing as we really shouldn't have such a low quality of work. Everytime my MD sees something turned to him, he probably sees my name in the CC and thinks I'm just incapable of getting it right.