Vice President Joe Biden reportedly had to apologize to President Obama last week after he revealed that he supports gay marriage, pressuring Obama to go public with his own endorsement. The president shrugged off the incident, saying that, while Biden had gone "a little over his skis," he'd merely sped up the timetable for a planned announcement. Still, the events of last week have spurred yet another round of speculation that Obama might replace his gaffe-prone No. 2 with someone less likely to make unexpected headlines. Should Obama find a new running mate?
Yes. Biden must go: I'm all for gay marriage, says Ben W. Heineman Jr. at The Atlantic, but the bottom line is that "a vice president should never force the hand of a president on a sensitive, first-order issue by getting out ahead publicly." In doing so, "Biden committed a governmental sin of the first order," making his boss look "weak and disorganized." Obama needs to dump Biden pronto and replace him with someone serious, and the obvious choice is Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
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