President Barack Obama called Vice President Joe Biden "a lion of American history" when he surprised his close friend and deputy with a warm tribute and gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction, the highest U.S. civilian honor and one that has been bestowed only three times before.
The award, a surprise to Biden, was testament to the unusually close friendship between the two men, and to Biden's 44 years of public service — "making him one of the most consequential vice presidents in American history," according to the official citation.
Biden represented the state of Delaware for 36 years before becoming Obama's vice president in 2009.
In U.S. politics, the role of a vice president varies from one administration to another. Obama has relied on Biden and consulted with him more often than almost any other president, according to White House officials and veteran observers of the American political process.
In his , Obama said Biden is "the best vice president we have ever seen," and spoke of his memorable qualities of generosity and friendship.
"That is why my family is proud to call ourselves honorary Bidens," the president said, his voice cracking with emotion. As the Irish poet William Butler Yeats wrote, Obama said, "'Think where man's glory begins and ends, and say my glory was I had such friends.'"
Biden was in tears when he learned of the award. A presidential medal "with distinction" has only been awarded three times in the past — to Pope John Paul II, President Ronald Reagan and General Colin Powell.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the vice president's main official duty is to cast a vote on any issue in which the Senate is divided at 50 votes apiece; the president's deputy also serves as acting head of state in case the serving president is incapacitated and, of course, is first in the line of succession should the president die in office.
American vice presidents also preside over a joint session of Congress after each quadrennial election, to certify the vote of the Electoral College that formally decides on a president's election.
In some administrations, vice presidents have had a more distant relationship with the occupant of the White House.
Vice President John Nance Garner, who served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1933-41, is frequently quoted as having said the vice presidency is "not worth a bucket of warm spit." (Actually, historians assert that he used a different word than "spit.")
In a review several years ago of the Smithsonian Institution said the vice presidency in the past was "a rogues' gallery of mediocrities [and] criminals."
Garner had been Roosevelt's main opposition before the election of 1932, and he was only added to the Democratic ticket that year in a deal to ensure he would drop out of the party's internal presidential campaign. Garner broke with Roosevelt in 1937 over a controversial issue at the time — the president's bid to enlarge the Supreme Court — and openly campaigned against the measure, which was defeated.
Biden, who is 74 years old, evokes a much warmer reaction from almost anyone who has known him, whether or not they were political allies.
Renee Van Vechten, professor of political science the University of Redlands in California, says the length of Biden's time in public service is memorable.
"He venerates public service and that's an honorable thing to do," she said. "It feels like a rarity among public servants today."
Furthermore, the professor notes, Biden "will also be known for that wink," and his public persona as a good-natured, fun-loving guy — a man known to his fans as "Uncle Joe."
At Thursday's White House ceremony, Obama recalled: "As one of his longtime colleagues in the Senate, who happened to be a Republican, once said, ‘If you can't admire Joe Biden as a person, you got a problem. He's as good a man as God ever created.'"
Biden, a middle-class lawyer from Scranton, Pennsylvania, won his first run for a Delaware seat in the Senate at age 29, turning 30 — the minimum age for a senator — just a few weeks before taking office in January 1973.
He initially became known for personal tragedy. Before he took office, Biden's wife and 13-month-old daughter were killed in a car accident, leaving the rookie U.S. senator with two young sons. Biden began traveling between Wilmington and Washington daily — usually by train, a 90-minute trip each way — to be sure he could see his sons before bedtime, and to maintain a semblance of normal home life.