Mother Jones - Comments for "Biden and the Senate"

I'm hoping President Obama can make more productive use of the VP than to have him be a weak assistant whip.

Gore made a significant contribution as VP, likely including the success of this here in-tor-net thingie...

Obama strikes me as someone who will want every asset producing the best it can, even an old hack like Joe Biden.

Well, I'm hoping for a little more check & balance in our government, so I wasn't unhappy to hear Harry Reid say this. Even if it is between a Democratic-majority Senate and the Obama administration.

Sorry, sofla, misread your tag.

You're forgetting that once they engineered Lott's removal and installed their little lickspittle Frist, Cheney's presence was the master's voice. He wasn't a genial go-between but was truly a Darth Cheney, or more like the emperor to Frist's Vader.

Sofia's right. The constitution isn't just what's written but what people have done. Until Cheney and Frist, the Senate was run by senators. No senate leaders worthy of the name would have allowed a VP into their talks. Instead there was Frist.

Cheney's purpose there was to give orders and intimidate senators, not to sound them out and lobby for the White House. Nothing that innocent.

He can meet them on his own turf to sound them out and lobby them. Instead, Cheney invaded their turf and claimed to own it, completely contrary to how things had been done.

Remember that constitutional law is largely custom. The VP has no business doing what Cheney was doing and there's no justification in convention and usage for what he was doing.

I never thought I'd see this blog make the mistake of Gov. Palin.

The role of the VP in 'presiding' over the Senate is a CEREMONIAL role. The VP does not control the legislative calender, the legislative schedule, or any of the other levers of machinery by which the majority control of the Senate is exercised by the Senate Majority Leader.

The sole legitimate role of the VP in the Senate, besides occasionally presiding and keeping reasonable regular order on the floor with his/her gavel, is to vote when there is otherwise a tie.

If the VP wants to take the temperature of the Senate by regularly meeting with the lead caucus, or something, perhaps it could be done, IF the president so authorizes it be done. Otherwise, it would seem a clear overstepping of the proper role, IMO.

Cheney did very little that could be described as "legitimate" or harmless. If he was found to be lurking about the Senate, it was probably to refine his enemies list.

Bloody his nose, Joe!

The reasonable compromise is that both these a-holes should be barred from Capitol Hill.

Less Reid and Biden, more Feingold and Franken.

And in all that time there wasn't a single fricken oversight hearing. Cheney thought his entire office was a part of the legislative branch, above examination. Hopefully, Obama and Biden will recognize their own Org chart - where the top is occupied by "The Constitution"

I think Cheney's meddling at the Pentagon (Office of Special Plans) and the CIA (outing Valerie Plame, etc.) were far more pernicious than his legislative strong-arming on Capitol Hill. There's nothing wrong with the VP acting as the President's point man on certain legislative initiatives. What Cheney did was erect a shadow government run out of his office which had the authority to bypass traditional cabinet-level prerogatives in order to formulate policy and influence the President -- all with complete secrecy and no accountability.

That, thankfully, will come to an end under Biden.

Reid may have once been a boxer, but he has a bark like a toy poodle.

Agreed, the VP should be on Capitol Hill.