“I know as much or more than Cheney,” Mr. Biden said. “I’m the most experienced vice president since anybody.” Source.

As Vice President Cheney told it two weeks ago, Lyndon B. Johnson was one of the, if not *the*, most powerful legislators in American history. Johnson was master of the game, leader of the Senate, and played hardball. Once elected to the Vice Presidency, he became “Lyndon Who?” Mike Mansfield and the other leaders of the Senate would have nothing to do with Johnson once out of the Senate.

About the only notable attention Lyndon Johnson received as Vice President was … well … there really was not any. Appointed to nominal jobs on nominal ad hoc committees, Johnson faded to nothing until tragedy in 1963 elevated him to Leader of the Free World.

On Tuesday, Joe Biden disappears. We already know it is going to happen. Perhaps Joe Biden is the last man in America who believes he’ll be significant. A powerful Senator from Delaware known for ill founded pretenses of foreign policy genius, Biden is more significantly known as a nice man, but a blowhard, who does not know when to shut up. He never met a shoe he did not like to taste.

Joe Biden is one of my very favorite Democrats. He’s full of himself and lacks real self assurance. But he’s fun.

He will be missed.