Keith Olberman is reporting on MSNBC at 2;45 PM EST that Jill Biden, wife of the Vice President-elect
spilled the beans in a pre-inauguration interview with Oprah Winfrey.
According to Keith, Jill and Joe Biden were appearing in a special edition of the Oprah Winfrey show at the Kennedy Center. Jill Biden revealed that in August, her husband was offered the Veep slot or the Secretary of State slot. According to Keith, the audience gasped upon hearing this, and Joe Biden tried to shush his wife from commenting further.
Here's the Huffpost link with a hat tip to turneresq: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The vice president-elect said he only accepted Obama's offer to be his running mate after talking it over with "Jilly," his pet name for his wife. Mrs. Biden said she told him vice president would be better for the family.
"If you're secretary of state, you'll be away, we'll never see you, you know," she said. "I'll see you at a state dinner once in awhile. But I said, if you are vice president, the entire family, because they worked so hard for the election, they can be involved. They can come to our home. They can go to events, they can be with us all the time. And that's what's important to us."
The vice president-elect didn't address his wife's comments, but said he didn't immediately take the vice presidential offer since he wasn't sure it was the best place for him to serve. But Biden, who ran against Obama in the Democratic primary race, said he agreed after getting some assurances from Obama about his role.
What this bit of information tells me is that Biden was Obama's number one person for his top slots. Not Senator Clinton or Senator Kerry. The fact that Obama offered Biden the SOS position probably made it easier for Biden to accept the Veep slot.
I wonder what the fallout from this will be. Probably not much, but it's interesting that Biden was Obama's
top pick for his most important positions. Wonder what Clinton-land will think of this.