So Joe Biden was profiled in GQ this month and talked about 2016. “I can die a happy man never having been president of the United States of America,” he told writer Jeanne Marie Laskas. “But it doesn’t mean I won’t run.”
That was the political takeaway from the piece, but Laskas captured a lot more veepin’ than just that. (She also cast Biden’s aviator sunglasses as a reliable co-star.)
For instance, Biden discussed the presidency in terms of office decor.
“And by the way, if you come in the office, I have two portraits hanging–one of Jefferson, one of Adams,” he said. “Both vice presidents who became president.” He told Laskas that he enjoyed the satisfied expressions on their faces. “I joke to myself, I wonder what their portraits looked like when they were vice presidents,” Biden said.
“It was an intriguing image, and I wanted to ask him more about it, but there was no opening. Joe Biden does not pause,” Laskas inserted.
The story is guided along as Biden gives Laskas and others a tour of his hometown of Wilmington, Del.–the cemetery where his parents, first wife and daughter are buried, his Catholic high school, a magical forest from childhood, his home. Occasionally a Secret Service agent chimes in. “Night and day,” one says when asked about how Biden differs from his predecessor, Dick Cheney. “Night and day.”
Other “friends of Biden” interviewed include Democrats and Republicans–Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel, Sen. John McCain, R.-Ariz. McCain could see Biden as president as long as the economy pulls through. “Of course, the State of the Union speech would be the longest in history,” McCain remarked.
Laskas could see him dropping that f-bomb again when he talked about his job. “You get the feeling Joe Biden would love to put it that way, to stand in a crowd of thousands in his aviators and say, ‘Yo, I’m the vice f—ing president of the United States, y’all.’ Which he has never said. But you think he might. That’s what’s funny.”
