Joe Who?
The silent man speaks. Or rather, he doesn’t actually speak. Others speak for him. Or down to him, as the case may be.
Dialing back his predecessor’s expansive view of the office, Vice President-elect Joe Biden plans on “restoring the Office of the Vice President to its historical role” as adviser to the president and tie-breaker in the Senate, an aide to Biden said Saturday.
The declaration results from an attention-getting article coming from the Las Vegas Sun, which is reporting Sunday in a story by Washington Bureau reporter Lisa Mascaro that the new Congress “will reassert its constitutional independence from the White House by barring the vice president from joining in internal Senate deliberations, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said in an interview with the Sun.”
“The move is intended to restore checks and balances to a system that tilted heavily toward the White House in the Bush presidency,” Mascaro writes. “By giving Vice President Dick Cheney regular access to Senate Republican caucuses, at times with White House advisers in tow, party unity became more important to many Republicans than upholding their responsibilities to provide legislative oversight of the executive, experts say.”
The paper says that when Reid was asked whether Biden will be allowed to attend Senate Democratic caucus meetings, Reid said: “Absolutely not.”
Frankly, I’m surprised they quoted a Biden spokesman here. Biden has pretty much gone down the memory hole even before Obama is sworn in. He simply isn’t in the news or doing much of anything. As The Politico noted earlier Biden pretty well is gone from public:
CHICAGO — More than three weeks into the transition, and Vice-President elect Joe Biden generates less buzz than the non-existent first puppy.
Who needs a puppy when you already have a lapdog?
Via Memeorandum
By Mwalimu Daudi, December 6, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
This is the story of two brothers.
One ran away to the big city.
The other became Vice President of the United States.
Neither one was ever heard from again.
By DavidL, December 7, 2008 @ 6:49 am
More likely story than Blue Hen Joe deciding to dial back to Veep role, BO told Joe to go back to Delaware and wait to be called. Don’t hold your breath Joe.
By martian, December 7, 2008 @ 11:15 am
Biden was nothing more than a safe choice for VP – one that would cover the Obamessiah on his foriegn relations weakness. Now that he’s elected, the Chosen One doesn’t intend to share the spotlight with anyone – especially a gaffe machine like Biden. The ego of He Whose Middle Name Must Not Be Spoken is showing here. I wouldn’t want to be anyone in his cabinet that disagrees with him – not a good career move.