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The White House Emergency that Wasn’t
In case you were under a rock this week, or plain out NOT on social media, you might have missed another episode of the greatest hits from this White House. The story goes something like this. The Vice President was on his way to New Hampshire to deliver a speech on opioids. Depending on when in the timeline, Air Force Two was recalled, or it never took off. What happened is that a staffer went on stage in New Hampshire, and told attendees that there was some kind of an emergency, and sent people home.
And here is where those of us who follow these things went down the rabbit hole. Usually, emergencies that have a Vice-President recalled from a scheduled event mean something very serious is happening. It usually implies somebody got sick, critically so, or has died. This somebody is the president. The other choice is a major international crisis. While Vice-Presidents are usually not part of the National Security Council staff, Joe Biden was not just present, but active during a few of those in the last administration. The role of Vice President Dick Cheney was equally large during the George W Administration. Both broke the pattern that the job of the vice-president is mostly to hold a seat warm for the time he may have to step into the role of president.
Under the constitution, the Vice President has no active role in either policy or decision making…