The Second-Most Powerful VP Ever

Dick Cheney may have been the most powerful vice president in American history, but could Joe Biden give him a run for his money? A new profile in The New York Times Magazine declares Biden the “second-most powerful vice president in history.” Biden is Obama’s right-hand man on foreign policy. He attends the president’s daily briefing every morning with National Security adviser James Jones, has a weekly one-on-one lunch with Obama, and sits on meetings with top national-security officials. It is also his duty to settle disputes among the so-called team of rivals, so he meets at least once a week with cabinet officers like Hillary Clinton, Robert Gates, and Jones. Of course, Dick Cheney may have made his job a bit easier: “Biden point out that he benefits from Cheney’s self-aggrandizement: Biden can reduce the scope of the office to something like its historic dimensions and still be the second-most powerful vice president in history.”