The

The I love the vice presidency.

It's one of the most awkward government positions in America.

You could say that it's the red-headed stepchild of the American political system.

It's often been compared to the appendix of the government.

It's not particularly useful at times, but it could cause a lot of trouble.

Our first vice president, John Adams, captured the awkwardness of the office when he said

that as vice president, he was nothing, but he could be everything. He was speaking, of course,

about the possibility that if the president died, resigned, was removed from office, was incapacitated,

he would have to become president. The vice presidency has often been compared to the booster

on the space shuttle. It's needed for getting someone elected president, but after the

election, they're often discarded. And history shows that the vice presidency is a tough office. You've got to be

totally loyal to the president. But if you want to be president yourself, that could mean taking on

the president's baggage. And many of our vice presidents have been ambitious

men, men who wanted the top job and maybe might have even ran against their boss, the president.

They take the vice presidency, but it ends up being very difficult for them. It's not easy for

someone who wanted to be president to be stuck as number two. There were lots of miserable

vice presidents throughout American history. FDR's vice president, John Nance Garner, said that the office

wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit. And that is the censored version of what he actually said.

Perhaps the most miserable vice president was Lennon Johnson, a man who was once the

most powerful senator in Congress, but was completely marginalized as JFK's vice president.

Our guest today, Roy Brownell, has a lot to say about the vice presidency. He's an author,

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