Vice President Joe Biden will be the new “White House Task Force on Working Families.”
Bravo to President-elect Barack Obama.
History tells us that the Vice President of the United States is not always as important as he seems to think….
Remember Dan Quayle?
President-elect Barack Obama will have to define the role of his Number Two. He and Vice President-elect Joe Biden seem already to agree on one thing for sure: the Vice President in the Obama Administration will have a smaller role than Dick Cheney.
Cheney responded: “President-elect Obama will decide what he wants in a vice president and apparently, from the way they’re talking about it, he does not expect him to have as consequential a role as I have had during my time.”
Vice President-elect Joe Biden, in focus but in the shadow, listens as President-elect Barack Obama makes remarks.(AP Photo)
Biden says the move is toward a more historical and constitutional role for the vice president.
Biden cited Article I of the constitution as the source of the Vice President’s power and role.
But it is Article II deals with the Executive Branch of government.
Article I deals with the legislative branch.
Vice President-elect Joe Biden “teaches constitutional law” back in Delaware “but can’t keep the articles of the constitution straight,” said Vice President Dick Cheney on Fox News Sunday.
With two wars boiling, the economy is its worst shape since the Great Depression and the former Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at his side one might think Obama would put Biden to the plow.
And Obama ha done just that. Joe Biden will chair The White House Task Force on Working Families.
Joe Biden – AP
But it is certain, Obama aides say: Biden will be smaller in stature than Cheney.
Auto Bailout
In an interview with Chris Wallace on Fox this past Sunday, Cheney also said that Congress had a chance to act on the bailout of the auto industry “and failed.”
“They had ample opportunity to deal with this issue and failed,” Cheney said in an exclusive interview with FOX News Sunday host Chris Wallace. “The President had no choice but to step in.”
Democrats in Congress disagreed.
But Sen. George Voinovich, R-OH, who represents a large auto industry constituency in his home state, was first out of the gate with an e-mailed statement, saying he was “grateful” for the president’s action “to help thwart a disaster that would have sent our state over the cliff.”
Asked about Biden’s role as Vice President, Cheney said that he had heard that Biden was seeking a smaller role as Vice President but that “it will be President-elect Barack Obama’s choice to diminish the office of the Vice President”….
Sure. Joe Biden will be busy with the White House Task Force on Working Families.
A spokeswoman for the vice-president-elect said “Biden had no intention of continuing the practice started by Vice President Cheney of regularly attending internal legislative branch meetings — he firmly believes in restoring the Office of the Vice President to its historical role.”
Maybe we are returing to the era of Vice President John Nance Garner who was quoted as saying his job was “not worth a bucket of warm spit.”
Garner once described a writer who quoted it this way as a “pantywaist.”
Garner apparetly used a word that began with a “p” and ended in “ss.”
John Nance Garner
.
By John E. Carey
Related:
Biden to oversee efforts aimed at middle class
AP – Vice President Dick Cheney
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From Politico
Outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney poked at Vice President-elect Joe Biden for muffing his constitutional facts on the campaign trail during a wide-ranging interview on “Fox News Sunday.”
Biden, who criticized Cheney for being the “most dangerous vice president” in American history, also has taken issue with Cheney’s expansion of the powers of the vice presidency.
The vice president-elect hasn’t, Cheney said, asked him for any advice.
Asked about Biden’s criticism, Cheney pointed out that Biden also said the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch are in Article One of the Constitution – and as a longtime chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and professor of constitutional law, should know that Article One applies to the legislative branch.
“I’d write that off as campaign rhetoric,” Cheney said.
He added: “If he wants to diminish the office of the vice president, that’s obviously his call. I think that President-elect Obama will decide what he wants in a vice president. And apparently from the way they’re talking about it, he does not expect him to have as consequential a role has I’ve had during my time.”
Host Chris Wallace also asked Cheney if he was bothered by his outgoing approval ratings – a dismal 29 percent.
“We didn’t set out to achieve the highest level of polls that we could during this administration,” Cheney said. “Eventually you wear out your welcome in this business.”
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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…..
See Politico:
http://www.politico.com/news/s
tories/1208/16261.html
>
Biden has called Cheney “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history.” Biden also has said he couldn’t name a single good thing that Cheney had done.
Cheney says he strongly disagrees with the idea that he dangerously expanded the powers of the executive branch. Cheney also says he doesn’t think Barack Obama will give Biden as consequential a role as Cheney has had under President George W. Bush.
See:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081221
/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cheney_biden_1
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Vice President Dick Cheney says it ultimately will be up to the new Obama administration to resolve the crisis in the U.S. auto industry.
Cheney says it’s a difficult problem and that President George W. Bush has done his best to manage it. It was just on Friday when Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the industry by offering $17.4 billion in loans. The aid comes with tough concessions from the carmakers and their workers.
Cheney notes that the Bush administration has less than a month left in power. He says the bailout is only a short-term plan and only goes so far. The vice president says it will be a problem that Barack Obama will have to deal with after he takes over on Jan. 20.
Cheney made the comments on “Fox News Sunday.”
–Associated Press
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Vice President Dick Cheney accused Congress of failing to help a dying U.S. auto industry, leaving President Bush no choice but to step in with billions of dollars in loans, he told FOX News on Friday.
The vice president spoke with FOX News Sunday’s Chris Wallace, shortly after Bush announced that the federal government would offer $17.4 billion in rescue loans to automakers.
Wallace said Cheney also took a newsworthy shot at his successor, Vice President-elect Joe Biden. The comments will air on FOX News Sunday.
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