Obama considers himself above deal-making and back-slapping, political necessities he often delegates to Vice President Joe Biden and other lesser sorts.

By nominating Chuck Hagel to be his Defense secretary, President Obama is putting forward an aloof contrarian who doesn't suffer fools - a striving politician who considers himself above politics.

The President has only 190 million bosses. The Vice President has 190 million and one.

Perhaps the cruelest thing ever said of Hubert Humphrey was that he had the soul of a vice president.

In a network situation, a vice president, while he's shaving, can decide your history.

President Obama is casting his lot in the middle of a debate as old as America itself: Are we rugged individualists pulling ourselves up by the bootstraps? Or are we a nation of community, all connected and counting on one another?