Our Vice President-elect spent a recent evening stuffing Christmas stockings for a charity, with his wife, because why not? It’s not like he has anything better to do! He looks forward to a wonderful first term playing Wii in the Cheney Dungeon and cutting ribbons at state fairs. In having no defined “portfolio” of busywork to attend to, Biden differs from other recent vice presidents. Dick Cheney’s portfolio, of course, included “Making war with everyone, quietly murdering deer, and colonizing Mars” whereas Al Gore had to streamline the government and Dan Quayle had to misspell common vegetables.
This is either a good or bad thing, Joe Biden’s up-in-the-air-ness. On the one hand, it gives him broad authority to do whatever he wants (such as run the Senate per Sarah Palin’s suggestions), and to learn about Things, and to act as a sage advice-giver to the President instead of getting distracted by various dumb little tasks like Al Gore did.
Al Gore … didn’t want to head Clinton’s task force on health-care reform, “believing that it would consume all of his attention.” Gore did, however, make a major exception to this rule by taking on a project to streamline the federal government—a task that Kerry told me made Gore less available to lobby his old friends in the Senate. “Frankly, I don’t think Clinton used Gore for that very effectively,” Kerry said. “I think when he was given reinventing government it put him on the sidelines.”
Well that all sounds very sensible! But surely there is an “other hand,” a downside, if you will. Ah here it is: in keeping Biden around for general advices and such, Obama is depriving reporters of much-needed “clarity.”
[W]hile Mr. Obama has moved quickly to assemble his White House staff and the beginnings of a cabinet, he is lagging behind even the chronically late President Bill Clinton in bringing clarity to the role his vice president will play.
Obama needs to hold a press conference to inform the media of Joe Biden’s specific duties: thinking, advising, breaking tie votes in the Senate, and playing Spore.
Biden’s Brief [New Yorker]
For Biden, No Portfolio but the Role of a Counselor [New York Times]
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There’s also the GHW Bush role: Biden should make a big chart of world leaders by age, and get CIA (if they’ll talk to him) projections on their expected demise dates. He can then plan his routing for “Air Force 2″ (yeah, right) accordingly.
Where can I sign up for a job with nothing to do, lots of security around me and eating stale hot dogs at state fairs….mmm, stale hot dogs…..
I hope he sits on Lieberman’s thumbs.
…I always figured that Spiritually Cleansing the Naval Observatory would be a full-time job?!
Obama needs to hold a press conference to inform the media of Joe Biden’s specific duties: thinking, advising, breaking tie votes in the Senate, and playing Spore.
1.That’s Joe THE Biden.
2.How many godammed press conferences can Barry hold? Jesus, let the man enjoy his Terducken already!
3.Spore is an awesome reference.
Steady income, lots of free time, needs to stay out of sight… World of Warcraft sounds perfect for Joe.
Is that Joe rockin’ the tam on the trolley? Man is the Daddy MACK!
Well since Bible Spice knew so well what the Veep job entailed (‘being in charge of the Senate’), maybe she can give Joe some pointers.
getting the smell of sulfur and formaldehyde out of the naval observatory will be a months-long process. joe biden’s team is now accepting applications to help out! pizza will be provided.
after that, he’ll be required to get sufficiently shitfaced and post a video reply to barry’s youtube address each week. this will attract roughly 20 times the number of pageviews that obama’s address gets. biden will then lean back in his chair, smile, and then just sorta zone out for a few days.
when an international crisis breaks out, biden will go play bocce ball with all the parties involved. he will destroy them. later, he’ll tell a bunch of inappropriate jokes as they’re all signing some boring peace accord.
FDR’s first VP, John Nance Garner once described the office of the vice presidency as being “not worth a bucket of warm piss.”
Incredibly, Biden has managed to devalue it.
Joe just arrived on my own island, Nantucket, for the Thanksgiving thing, with a minimal entourage. This is his 33rd year in a row. Instead of arriving in one of the Bush administration’s Imperial star cruisers, he came by ferry, stopping at a Christy’s in Hyannis for a cup of coffee. Turns out he likes his coffee like he likes his presidents: black.
While sitting on them, he will twiddle them frequently. It will be his little secret.
Nothing like pithy criticism from John “why-don’t-you-shut-the-fuck-up-loser” Kerry.
You forget state funerals. With any luck, there’ll be plenty of those around the world, what with starvation and other dire threats. He’ll look good in black, with his expensive hair.
[re=186603]Naked Bunny with a Whip[/re]: I hope he stomps on Lieberman’s thumbs. Preferably when he comes crawling back.
Joe will be appointed ambassador to the Bitters and will open our our first Bitters Embassy in Scranton, PA.
His portfolio will also include rail travel, cuz he loves that Amtrack to Wilmington so much. We can also put him in charge of making Delaware less sucky and force it to stop leeching money from commuting citizens of Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Biden’ll have plenty to do — moving the whole damn Washington bureaucracy to Chicago will occupy most of his first term.
I thought Biden was making us go into a helicopter war with the Darfurians?
Fuck reporters and their incessant bitching. They’re the perpetual needy teenager. Fuck off already.
Biden has a very important job – he’s the guy who has to say crazy shit every few days so that we fragile Americans don’t die of shock over the President actually being a competent non-moron. Every time we start to panic, Joe the Biden will say that J-O-B-S is three letters or something and we’ll all know that everything is going to be OK.
Who is this Joe Biden for which you refer to?
[re=186644]HomoPolitico[/re]: Yes, and as ambassador to the Bitters, he will be in charge of keeping SoS Hillary ‘in line’,ie-
keep her from drunk dialing Hopey,
keep Bill and all his ‘entanglements’ out of the press,
and make sure Hillary has done her homework on time.
Can’t Sarah! be VP? Life would be so much more interesting, with the roving packs of sled dogs and killin’ turkeys n’ all
[re=186607]freakishlystrong[/re]: That’s turBACONducken.
Something tells me cock-blocking Bill at official dinners full of foreign cuties is going to be a full time job.
I think Joe the Biden needs to be given his official sidekick uniform, something in a nice green or pink (green AND pink?) leotard and a cape. This will help fully clarify, for those who apparently need it, the “role” which Joe the Biden will be playing: staying the fuck out of SuperBarry’s way.
As always the mention of the murdered deer at the Naval Observatory brings to mind that day, several years ago, that morning commuters on Barham Avenue in Burbank CA were treated the sight of a deer corpse seated in an abandoned and derelict easy-chair by the side of the road.
Many speculated that this heinous act of performance art was in fact perpetrated by a group “crazy Swedes” in corporate housing and working on the same software project that I was there for. However, that morning, none of them seemed to be infested with the blood-sucking parasites that a drunken session of wrestling a cooling road-killed deer might invite. Just the same, I was never more happy that my office was amidst the “real employees” so that I didn’t have to check my furiture for cooties.
BTW, it was my birthday yetserday and I now feel oddly compelled to tell strange old weird-uncle stories.
I’m wondering if old Biden got had by taking this VP thing. Of course, there was no reason for Barry to get him out of the Senate and I guess they thought he was a better pick than caving to the Clintonistas, but after reading this story, it sounds like Joe didn’t ask enough questions during his vetting, especially with the news Hillary would be at State (I wonder when Biden found that out?). This is actually a pretty tough story on Biden (“the President intends to listen to the Vice President at every opportunity, but he won’t have his own “portfolio”‘). Having a portfolio didn’t do Gore much good (except for winning the Nobel Prize) and Biden doesn’t want to run again for Prez, but still…I think he might miss being Delaware Joe on Amtrak. I know for damn sure Hillary won’t be calling and his former fellow Senators will probably not have much to do with him as we lurch toward the mid-terms…
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