After Cheney
Foreign-policy sage, sounding board, senatorial arm-twister, troubleshooter: Joe Biden could be the second-most-powerful vice president in history. Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala - via New York Times (Most Emailed)Review
This is a very well-detailed vignette of how influential Vice-President is--particularly with respect to foreign policy.
Biden loves a stage, and he loves all-American hokum. “As corny as it sounds,” he said, after Raymond T. Odierno, the commanding general in Iraq, addressed the troops, “damn, I’m proud to be an American.” AS SENATORS, BARACK OBAMA and Joe Biden were far from close. Obama served on the Foreign Relations Committee, which Biden led; and Biden, who felt that he had earned his stars the old-fashioned way, bristled at Obama’s status as instant superstar. “They started out pretty far apart,” a Biden aide says. From the outset of his tenure as vice president, Biden had come to view himself as the one who asked the unpleasant and searching question — who “upset the apple cart,” as he put it.
a refreshing change of pace from his predecessor!