The House of Tranquillity

By DAVID BROOKS
NYT

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama and Joe Biden had a Felix and Oscar air about them. Obama was disciplined and professorial while Biden was tactile and approachable. Biden would make an off-color joke, while Obama would put on a contemptuous grimace. Biden would bound friskily onstage to the roar of the crowd. Obama would glide gracefully and even ask Joe to hold his coat.

It was not automatic that the two men would work well together once in office. When advisers from the Obama campaign interviewed Biden as a potential running mate and asked him why he wanted to be vice president, he told them that, in fact, he didn’t want the job. He’d do it. But he didn’t want it.

And, indeed, Biden’s first few months on the job were not entirely happy. He went off on one of his gaffe sprees, angering White House aides. It was common to hear Democratic senators say, “Joe is miserable. He’s doing this for the country, but he’s miserable.”

It was odd to interview him then. Normally a verbal gusher, his word rate diminished to a trickle. He paused and hemmed, like a man crossing a minefield.

(More here.)