US vice president-elect Joe Biden was all smiles when he paid a courtesy call to the man he will succeed, Vice President Dick Cheney.
But he has insisted he wants to be nothing like him.
Biden has called Cheney “the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history” and said he couldn’t name a single good thing Cheney had done. But even if he won’t acknowledge any similarities, there’s one way that Biden wants to be like Cheney — a strong partner in governing the country.
Biden is proving to be a hands-on No. 2 to president-elect Barack Obama. He is carving out his own niche, specializing in foreign affairs, his area of expertise for decades in the Senate, and sticking close to Obama.
Meanwhile, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady who pushed Obama hard for the Democratic presidential nomination, emerged as a candidate that the president-elect is considering for secretary of state, according to two Democratic officials in close contact with the Obama transition team.
Other people frequently mentioned for the State Department job are Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican and critic of the Iraq War; Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate; and New Mexico’s Hispanic Democratic governor, Bill Richardson, a former UN ambassador.
Obama has named several former aides to former president Bill Clinton to help run his transition effort. Biden himself will have an experienced aide who can help his voice be heard in the White House.
He chose former vice president Al Gore’s chief of staff Ron Klain to fill the same job for him, Democrats said on Thursday.
Past vice presidents have often been relegated to ceremonial roles, without major input on daily decisions. But the last two vice presidents, Cheney and Al Gore, have been extraordinarily involved and insisted on private weekly lunches with their bosses.
Biden has said he told Obama, before accepting the running mate slot, that he wouldn’t want a peripheral assignment like reorganizing government, which Gore took on, along with other tasks.
In an interview with The New Yorker magazine last month, he said he told Obama: “I don’t want to be a vice president who is not part of the major decisions you make.”
Biden will have a special interest in the Iraq War, as his son is scheduled to deploy there this month.
So far, Biden has been working closely with Obama. He has been in almost all the president-elect’s meetings at his new government office space in Chicago and has been dispatched to make calls to several foreign leaders.
Biden was asked to smooth over a miscommunication following Obama’s phone call with Polish President Lech Kaczynski last week.
Kaczynski issued a statement saying Obama vowed to continue with President George W. Bush’s missile defense project. But Obama’s advisers denied it, and the Polish foreign minister later said it was a misinterpretation on their part.
Biden called Kaczynski a couple of days later to explain that the Obama administration will assess the program before deciding whether to stick with it.
He also spoke this week with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Jordan’s King Abdullah II, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Brown’s predecessor, Tony Blair. And he spoke with Israel’s foreign and defense ministers, along with Israeli opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu, according to a statement issued on Thursday by the Obama transition team.
Biden has said he’d like to use his 36 years of experience in the Senate, including leadership of the Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees, to help push Obama’s agenda in Congress.
It is longtime insider’s experience that Obama lacks and a role that has not been Cheney’s focus.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese