Biden: old-school vice president, more Mondale than Cheney

Biden: old-school vice president, more Mondale than Cheney

By Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers



WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's been laying on the praise so thick for his vice president that even a guy as self-deprecating as Joe Biden might wonder if Obama's messing with him.

"We call him 'The Sheriff,'" Obama said recently, talking about how he's asked Biden to oversee implementation of the $787 billion economic stimulus. "Nobody messes with Joe," the president said in his first formal address to Congress.

After less than two months in office, Obama also has called on Biden, 66, to act as a foreign-policy emissary, run a middle-class task force, stand in on national network morning shows and round up support for the administration by tapping allies in organized labor and friends from both political parties on Capitol Hill.

Entrusted with far more than funerals and ribbon cuttings, Biden's responded with deference and gratitude, but hasn't quite curbed his penchant for stream-of-consciousness monologues and wisecracks that makes Obama uneasy.

Biden travels to Brussels next week to talk about Afghanistan and Pakistan with NATO allies and meet with European Union officials. Last month, he appeared at the Munich Security Conference, an annual event the former Foreign Relations Committee chairman had previously attended in 36 years as a senator from Delaware.

"I come to Europe on behalf of a new administration," Biden told this year's conference, "an administration that's determined to set a new tone not only in Washington but in America's relations around the world."

Neither as powerful behind the scenes as Dick Cheney nor as marginalized as Dan Quayle became, Biden seems to be charting a middle course along the lines of Walter Mondale or Al Gore.

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That is what a VP should be. He is going to the Nato Summit in Belgium next week and will represent the US very well. President Obama has a lot on his plate with the economy and domestic problems so its good to have a VP who has foreign policy experience.

doing a good job and you're right, taking some of the heat off the president.

like Dick Cheney. I know it is not always appreciated but I like Biden's sense of humor too.

is darth vader.

Obama and Biden, et al make a good team and I've got their back.