Biden forced to shush wife on Oprah

January 20, 2009

bidens The wife of vice-president-elect Joe Biden has let it slip to talkshow host Oprah Winfrey that her husband had a pick of two jobs in the Obama administration.

Jill Biden said president-elect Barack Obama gave Biden the choice of being secretary of state or vice-president.

The vice-president-elect tried to hush his wife as soon as the words came out of her mouth, with a loud “shhh” that sent the audience into laughter.

The Bidens made a surprise appearance on Winfrey’s show, recorded at the Kennedy Centre for broadcast later on Monday local time on the eve of the inauguration.

The vice-president-elect said he only accepted Obama’s offer to be his running mate after talking it over with Jilly, his pet name for his wife.

Jill Biden said she told him vice-president would be better for the family.

She said:

“If you’re secretary of state, you’ll be away, we’ll never see you, you know,”

“I’ll see you at a state dinner once and awhile. But I said, if you are vice-president, the entire family, because they worked so hard for the election, they can be involved. They can come to our home. They can go to events, they can be with us all the time. And that’s what’s important to us.”

The vice-president-elect didn’t address his wife’s comments, but said he didn’t immediately take the vice-presidential offer since he wasn’t sure it was the best place for him to serve.

But Biden, who ran against Obama in the Democratic primary race, said he agreed after getting some assurances from Obama about his role.

“This is a partnership,” Biden said.

“He’s president of the United States, but as I said to him when he asked me, I said, ‘Barack, don’t ask me unless the reason you’re asking me is, you’re asking me for my judgment. I get to be the last guy in the room before you make every important decision. You’re president. Any decision you make, I will back’.”

“He said he wanted to have a confidant and somebody who wouldn’t be a yes man. He’s pretty sure about that [last part],” Biden said with a laugh.

Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander put out a statement trying to play down Jill Biden’s comments.

“To be clear, president-elect Obama offered vice-president-elect Biden one job only – to be his running mate and the vice-president-elect was thrilled to accept the offer,” she said.

“Like anyone who followed the presidential campaign this summer, Dr Jill Biden knew there was a chance that president-elect Obama might ask her husband to serve in some capacity and that, given his background, the positions of vice-president and secretary of state were possibilities,” Alexander said.

“Dr Biden’s point to Oprah today was that being vice-president would be a better fit for their family because they would get to see him more and get to participate in serving more.”

Hillary Clinton, Obama’s former Democratic primary foe, was named to serve as secretary of state after his historic election triumph.