Obama’s vice president a ‘he?’

Source: Reuters

August 19th, 2008
Obama’s vice president a ‘he?’

RALEIGH, North Carolina - Barack Obama won’t say yet who his running mate will be but on Tuesday he did describe the qualities he wants in a vice president. Briefly put: “he” will be the opposite of Dick Cheney, the man who currently holds the office.

“My vice president will be a member of the executive branch, he won’t be one of these fourth branches of government where he thinks he’s above the law,” Obama told a crowd in North Carolina.

Note the choice of pronoun. An Obama spokeswoman said not to read into that word choice but Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and New York Sen. Hillary Clinton — two women said to be on the Illinois senator’s list — may want to take note. Obama went on to describe what he was NOT looking for in a running mate, painting a stark contrast with Cheney, who spearheaded President George W. Bush’s energy task force, influences White House foreign policy, including the Iraq war, and has claimed to be a member of the legislative branch because of his tie-breaking role in the U.S. Senate.

“I won’t hand over my energy policy to my vice president,” Obama said. “I won’t have my vice president engineering my foreign policy for me.” Moving on to the qualities he did want, Obama said, “I want somebody who has integrity, who’s in politics for the right reasons. I want somebody who is … independent, somebody who is able to say to me, ‘You know what, Mr. President? I think you’re wrong on this and here’s why.’”

http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/08/19/obamas-vice-president-a-he