Vice President Joe Biden

WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's tightrope walk in the wake of Vice President Joe Biden's recent comments regarding gay marriage has placed a new focus on the president's second-in-command, a role that, in the opinion of Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, is one that requires less statesmanship and more following in the footsteps of the first lady. “Being a vice president is kind of like being a first lady. You are there to support and serve the president. There is no job description,” Clinton said in an interview with the New York Times . Biden's gaffe-prone vice presidency has brought about persistent speculation that Clinton could slip in as a replacement for the 2012 presidential election, speculation that Biden commented on Sunday on NBC's “Meet the Press.” “The thing that annoys me about it is the implication of that somehow President Clinton is weak and he needs some kind of help,” Biden said, before host David Gregory corrected him. “President Obama is weak,” Biden continued.

Vice President Joe Biden said he and President Obama are "in the same place" on same-sex marriage, just more than a week after his comments on the issue forced the president to hasten his public declaration of support. In an interview with CBS affiliate WTRF during a stop in southeast Ohio on Thursday, Biden reiterated Obama's position that it would be up to each state to "determine for themselves how they're going to treat the issue of marriage. " At the same time, he said everyone is "entitled to the same exact rights.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Joe Biden has arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit "to assess progress toward the transition to Afghan-led security beginning this year, and to demonstrate the United States' commitment to a long-term partnership with Afghanistan," the White House announced Monday. The trip is Biden's first to Afghanistan since becoming vice president, though he traveled there as vice president-elect in 2009. According to a pool reporter traveling with Biden, he will meet Monday night with Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Ambassador Karl Eikenberry to get an "update from them on the situation on the ground.

WASHINGTON, Pa. -- Republican strategists planning to use Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a summer ad campaign against President Obama “misunderstand the state of the nation,” Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday. “They act like it's 1942 or something,” Biden told reporters as he stopped for lunch at a Western Pennsylvania barbecue spot. “I think the public is so, so far beyond that.” Mitt Romney had quickly attempted to distance himself from the unrealized plan by a “super PAC” backed by Joe Rickets to link Obama to his controversial former pastor, as was reported in this morning's New York Times.

Vice President Joe Biden, increasingly visible as a key presidential advisor on domestic issues, predicted Friday that the country was moving toward a growing acceptance of same-sex marriage. Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning America," Biden compared the nation's changing views on gay marriage to changes in the military's acceptance of gays and lesbians serving openly. "I think the country is evolving, and I think there is an inevitability for a national consensus on gay marriage," Biden said.

Brisk book sales lifted President Obama's income to $5.5 million in his first year in office, an amount that dwarfs that of his recent predecessors while in power and reflects the public's continued willingness to pay to read his writings. On tax day, the White House released 2009 returns showing that the Obamas' income more than doubled from the year before. They collected $2.7 million in 2008, and $4.2 million in 2007. Obama paid nearly $1.8 million in federal taxes and $163,000 in Illinois state taxes.

Schools must do more to prevent and respond to sexual violence on campus, Vice President Joe Biden said Monday as he introduced new federal guidelines to combat the problem. "Students across the country deserve the safest possible environment in which to learn," Biden said. "That's why we're taking new steps to help our nation's schools, universities and colleges end the cycle of sexual violence on campus. " Biden was joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan at the University of New Hampshire, which was chosen because of its highly regarded efforts in sexual violence prevention.

WASHINGTON Ã?Â? Vice President Joe Biden breezed in and out of a Delaware courthouse Monday after being called for jury duty. The vice president's office announced Monday morning that Biden would "participate in the standard jury selection process" in the Superior Court of Delaware "in his capacity as a private citizen. " A White House aide said he was dismissed, along with the rest of his jury pool, at about noon without being called to serve on a trial. According to the Wilmington News Journal, if Biden had been seated on a jury, it would have been for a misdemeanor trial, which typically lasts one or two days.

Vice President Joe Biden arrived on Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening as budget negotiators tried to settle on an estimated $23 billion in reductions for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year, a Democratic aide said. Republicans said no final number had been agreed upon, dismissing Democratic suggestions that talks were narrowing to a middle ground. They pressed Democrats to present their offer. Biden, along with White House budget director Jack Lew, have served as the administration's lead liaisons to Capitol Hill as lawmakers face a April 8 deadline to pass a budget and avoid a government shutdown.

If the three attacks of Sept. 11 have each taken on symbolism in the last decade, Flight 93 has come to be thought of as Middle America's tragedy — at least by those closest to it. Its site is pastoral and quiet, miles from hubs of power. Its story prompts a simple question: What would I have done? In a meadow blanketed with wildflowers and goldenrod, federal officials, families of the victims, and others gathered Saturday to ponder that question and dedicate a memorial to the crew and passengers who responded so bravely.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio - Vice President Joe Biden and unofficial Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney skirmished over the economy and their ability to improve it in swing-state appearances Wednesday that underscored each side's positioning on the key issue in November's general election. Biden and other Democrats are seeking to disqualify Romney in the minds of voters as an alternative to President Obama. Polls consistently have found that voters give Romney better marks for his potential handling of the economy than they give Obama for dealing with it. Romney and other Republicans have long criticized the president's moves on the economy.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Vice President Joe Biden brought the Obama campaign's Bain Capital offensive to Ohio Wednesday, framing the election as a choice between economic philosophies that would have stark consequences for the middle class. Speaking at a local manufacturer, Biden said there was "life and hope in the heartland" as a result of the administration's pro-manufacturing policies, which he said would do more to build a lasting economy than the profit-at-all-cost approach of firms like the one Mitt Romney headed.

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- Vice President Joe Biden today is traveling to this working-class city to amplify the Obama campaign's tough attack on Mitt Romney's economic credentials, accusing the Republican of profiting at the expense of laid-off manufacturing workers. It's the follow-through of a one-two punch from the president's reelection team concerning Romney's ties to Bain Capital, the private equity firm he controlled for 15 years. A campaign ad that aired in key battleground states told the story of a Kansas City steel plant that went bankrupt and laid off workers after Bain took control.

President Obama's announcement Wednesday that he was done "evolving" and now supports same-sex marriage was, in retrospect, inevitable. Vice President Joe Biden made it so Sunday, when he remarked almost casually that he had grown "comfortable" with gay marriage. Biden's comfort level made Obama the nation's least comfortable politician, tied up in a knot of convoluted positions that he had hoped voters on both sides would overlook. He opposed state laws like the one passed in North Carolina this week denying same-sex couples the right to wed. But even as he opposed anti-marriage laws, he didn't support pro-marriage laws.

SEATTLE -- Before President Obama sat down for a television interview to announce he was now in favor of same-sex marriage, he received an apology from Vice President Joe Biden, the man whose own comments on the issue days earlier hastened the decision for Obama to go public with his long-awaited reversal. According to a source familiar with the conversation, Biden expressed his regret for getting ahead of Obama on the issue, after he told NBC's David Gregory that he was "absolutely comfortable" with gay couples being married.

WASHINGTON -- President Obama said Vice President Joe Biden got "a little over his skis” on Sunday when he said he supported same-sex marriage on a morning TV talk show. But Biden did it out of a "generosity of spirit," Obama said in the full interview with ABC's Robin Roberts on "Good Morning America," broadcast today. Obama said he had already made a decision that he would affirm the right of gays and lesbians to marry and was planning to do it in advance of the election.

Vice President Joe Biden called on Israeli officials Tuesday to work harder for creation of a Palestinian state and to halt growth of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Biden, speaking at a conference sponsored by an influential pro-Israel lobby, said the Obama administration was committed to a new direction in Middle East peace efforts because "the status quo of the last decade has not served the interests of the United States, or Israel, very well."

Vice President Joe Biden issued a high-level admonishment to Israel's new government Tuesday that it would be "ill advised" to launch a military strike against Iran. Biden said in a CNN interview that he does not believe newly installed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would take such a step. Even so, his comment underscored a gap between the conservative new Israeli government and the Obama White House on a series of questions, including the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and Iran.