NY Times - Joe Biden Feed

Updated March 30, 2009

Joseph R. Biden is the vice president of the United States. He served in the Senate from 1972, when he was elected at the age of 29, until taking office with President Obama on Jan. 20, 2009. Known primarily in the Senate for his knowledge of foreign policy, in the early days of the Obama administration he has been influential in shaping a new approach to Afghanistan. Mr. Obama also put Mr. Biden in charge of a task force on improving the situation of the middle class.

As a senator, Mr. Biden experienced personal tragedy, near-fatal illness, and multiple failed attempts to advance to the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. Though neither of his campaigns for the Democratic nomination ever really took off, he was tapped as Senator Barack Obama's running mate on Aug. 23, 2008.

Only a month after winning his first Senate election, Mr. Biden’s wife and 13-month old daughter died in a car accident, which put both of his sons in the hospital. Mr. Biden was sworn into the Senate at their bedsides. His pursuit of the 1988 Democratic nomination ended amid accusations that he lifted large portions of his remarks at a debate from a British Labor Party leader. And a few months after his departure from the race Mr. Biden collapsed from a brain aneurysm, ultimately undergoing two surgeries over a few months.

Mr. Biden told The Times he had learned something different from each of the three crises in his life.

The accident taught him, he said, "to always let the people you love know you love them, and never let something go unsaid." The aneurysm taught him that "it's a hell of a lot easier being on the operating table than in the waiting room." As for the 1987 race, Mr. Biden said he learned that he could pull himself back up after the crippling experience of having his character questioned, "particularly when it's your own fault."

Mr. Biden is perhaps best known for his work on the Foreign Relations Committee, of which he was chairman until leaving the Senate. He has said he regrets his 2003 vote in favor of the Iraq invasion and he was a persistent and harsh critic of the Bush administration's war conduct.

Despite his emphasis on diplomacy, Mr. Biden is known for his direct - and sometimes impulsive - speech, which has often attracted criticism. He was seen as an odd fit for the Obama campaign- a Senate lifer on a team bent on changing politics, a loose cannon in a laser-guided message machine.

As vice president, Mr. Biden has taken steps to rein himself in - or others have insisted on it.

President Obama wanted his No. 2 to be a kind of über-adviser and interdisciplinary trouble-shooter, and Mr. Biden was not given a portfolio of issues to handle. Instead, he has full access to the president's schedule and is free to attend anything. Many within the administration have been struck with how strenuously the president has worked to include him and, perhaps most notably, the influence Mr. Biden appears to be wielding.

He has been charged with overseeing the distribution of the $787 billion authorized by the economic stimulus bill, heading the White House's "middle-class task force" and jumping into any number of treacherous diplomatic arenas, from Pakistan to Capitol Hill.

Officials involved in the deliberations said Mr. Biden had been influential in Mr. Obama's development of a new policy on Afghanistan, arguing for a relatively limited military increase, combined with stepped up economic and diplomatic efforts.