What is it about America's Office of Vice President that attracts thugs, lowlifes and posers?

I love Joe Biden but just look at some of his predecessors as well as aspirants to the office: Dick Cheney was evil. Sarah Palin was a moronic fraud powered by hunger for fame. John Edwards was a shameless adulterer and liar. Joe Lieberman was a pious publicity hound and foreign policy sellout. Then there was Dan Quayle, Spiro Agnew, and of course Richard Nixon. Maybe it's that the word "vice" is in the title. They should call it the office of deputy president.

• "Attracts" them? Well, maybe because they're politicians and if they're offered the chance to be VP they see it as a stepping stone to the presidency? Just a guess.

• If you are a thug/lowlife/poser, you might as well be the 2nd best thug/lowlife/poser if the top seat is being filled by someone more adept than yourself.

• OP, let's not leave wannabe VP Paul Ryan off the list of frauds and poseurs.

• They're all whores, darlin'. I agree, Joe is good. I guess he's a whore with a heart of gold.

• Curious. What makes Joe good? He seems like the crazy uncle with Alzheimers that you put out on display during family reunions to get the conversation started more than a statesman.

• Because they're chosen less for what they can do in office than who they pull in on election day.

• I think Joe is crazy like a fox, in a good way. My impression of him, overall, is that somehow despite years in Washington, he is a fundamentally decent guy. And he obviously marches to his own drum. Fortunately it's not a crazyass one like Cheney or Palin marches to.

• These people don't go through the scrutiny of a campaign (until rubber stamped a couple of months before the general election). I was no fan of Al Gore myself at the time; he looks a lot better in hindsight.

• OP, plese explain the thuggery and lowlife connections of Vice Presidents Thomas Jefferson, Harry Truman, Chester A. Arthur, Calvin Coolidge, Millard Fillmore, John Tyler, Theodore Roosevelt, Martin Van Buren, and John Adams. What is is about DL that attracts people who display their ignorance by starting stupid threads?

• Nixon always said Agnew was better than a bullet proof vest. As the popular King Charles II said to his brother and heir, the future James II, who was widely disliked, "No one is going to kill me to put you on the throne!"

• Come back, OP. Tell us about thuggery of Calvin Coolidge.

• What is OP's opinion of Alben Barkley, John Nance Garner, and John C. Calhoun?

• Why doesn't OP follow up with more info?

• Good observation, OP I like this thread. Who will the Rethugs nominate in the No. 2 slot in 2016? Maybe Iowa's Steve King. Georgia's Paul Broun. Florida's Rick Scott.