Obama's big promise to Biden

"To test a man's character, give him power."---Abe Lincoln

CNN International:

When Obama talked to him about the vice-presidential slot, Biden recalled, “I said, ‘I don’t want to be picked unless you’re picking me for my judgment. I don’t want to be the guy that goes out and has a specific assignment. ... I want a commitment from you that in every important decision you’ll make, every critical decision, economic and political, as well as foreign policy, I’ll get to be in the room.’”

Biden said President-elect Obama has kept the promise, having Biden in the room for all of his decisions about who will fill key posts in the administration.

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There has been so much talks about Biden's role as the Veep in Obama Administration. He has made it clear that he will be Obama's adviser in critical decisions in the Administration and he will not play a role as the President of the Senate. Biden's role will be far different from Dick Cheney as in the example of Cheney's role in the National Security Adviser meetings where Cheney played a major role in those meetings:

From Rawstory in 2006:

Shortly after taking office, Vice President Dick Cheney fought to take over one of the national security adviser's key duties, claims an unnamed ex-official in the June issue of Vanity Fair.

"At one point early in this Bush administration, a former official tells me, Cheney wanted to chair meetings of the National Security Council "principals"— the secretaries of state and defense, the C.I.A. director, and so on—in Bush’s absence, co-opting the usual role of the national security adviser, then Condoleezza Rice," writes Vanity Fair national editor Todd Purdum in an advance copy provided by the magazine to RAW STORY.

Practically unnoticed, a National Security Presidential Directive issued Feb.13, 2001, and signed by President George W. Bush, formally gave the vice president that duty, albeit at the President's discretion.

In his book, Against All Enemies, Richard A. Clarke, former special advisor to the National Security Council, mentioned Cheney's attendance at the principals meetings.

"In the first weeks of the Administration, however, Cheney had heard me loud and clear about al-Qaida," Clarke wrote. "Now that he was attending the NSC Principals meetings chaired by Condi Rice (something no Vice President had ever done), I hoped he would speak up about the urgency of the problem, put it on a short list for immediate action. He didn't."

Clarke was taken off the principals committee by Rice in Bush's first year before the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

National Security Presidential Directive:

SUBJECT: Organization of the National Security Council System


The National Security Council (NSC) shall have as its regular attendees (both statutory and non-statutory) the President, the Vice President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs. The Director of Central Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as statutory advisors to the NSC, shall also attend NSC meetings. The Chief of Staff to the President and the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy are invited to attend any NSC meeting.