Vice President Joe Biden called his predecessor Dick Cheney a “decent man” Tuesday, as he appeared to be touting his credentials as a bipartisan problem-solver in contrast with Hillary Clinton.
“I have a lot of Republican friends. I don’t think my chief enemy is the Republican Party,” Biden said at the Walter Mondale Forum at George Washington University, a not-too-thinly veiled reference to Clinton’s debate assertion that Republicans were the enemies of which she is proudest.
The vice president subtly criticized Clinton’s skills working with others, saying he is someone who reserves negative judgement and has few enemies in politics.
“It’s always appropriate to judge a man or woman’s judgement, it’s never appropriate to judge their motive,” Biden added.
Related Story: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2574118/
Biden, a former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also said that his greatest role in the vice president’s office has been assisting President Obama on diplomacy.
He spoke at length of his close relationship with President Obama, his extensive foreign policy experience and close relationships with foreign leaders. He said that when he assumed the vice presidency, Obama gave him veto power on every member of the cabinet, including the secretary of state position filled by Clinton.
“We’ve had two great secretaries of state, but when I go, they know I am speaking for the president,” Biden said of his trips overseas, adding he’s “met every major world leader in the past 40 years.”
The vice president said he was on the same page as the president when it came to substantive policy matters. “President Obama and I have had zero ideological disagreements, none,” Biden said. “I’m confident we’ve had the same view on foreign policy and use of force, everything from the tax structure and civil liberties.”
Biden is nearing a decision on whether he wants to run to succeed Obama in the Democratic primaries, a campaign that would require him to draw these kinds of distinctions with Clinton.
