Biden is Obama's point man on almost everythingBy Margaret Talev | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — Suddenly, Vice President Joe Biden is everywhere.
Leading talks with Egypt's new vice president, Omar Suleiman, to help shape the transition to democracy.
Meeting with prominent deficit and tax policy experts as President Barack Obama seeks bipartisan agreements on both fronts.
Zipping through Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq on a whirlwind war-policy tour.
And that's just since January.
From the start of his presidency, Obama looked for Biden to play a substantive role. That role has grown more visible, and probably more important, since Democrats lost control of the House of Representatives in November, forcing Obama to work more cooperatively with Republicans, something Biden's done for a lifetime.
"What's changed is who's up there on the Hill," said Ron Klain, who stepped down last month as Biden's chief of staff. "The vice president has good relationships with Republicans, and he'll try to use those relationships to the administration's advantage."
White House aides and former Senate colleagues say the rise of the Republicans in Congress coincided with an evolution in the Biden-Obama relationship. They didn't know each other all that well before their election, and forged a partnership while combating the worst economic downturn in 70 years.
"When your relationship is forged in crisis like that, you find out a lot about the other guy," said top Obama adviser David Axelrod, who left the White House last month to plot the 2012 re-election campaign. Over the past two years, he said, Obama learned "what a faithful adviser and advocate Biden could be."
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