Vice President Joe Biden apologized to President Barack Obama for making remarks that prompted the president to disclose his support for same-gender marriage before he planned to, according to an administration official.
Biden delivered the apology to the president yesterday morning, before Obama gave an interview to ABC News in which he said he’s had a change of heart and now supports legal gay marriage, the official said.
Biden’s remarks in a May 6 broadcast of NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he is “absolutely comfortable” with same-gender marriage forced the president to speed up his timetable for revealing his position, administration officials said.
“The president has been the leader on this issue from Day One and the vice president never intended to distract from that,” Kendra Barkoff, Biden’s press secretary, said in an e- mail. The New York Times reported the apology earlier.
In the ABC News interview in which he revealed his change in stance, Obama said Biden “probably got out a little bit over his skis” in making his remarks “out of a generosity of spirit.”
While Obama said he would have preferred to announce his stance “in my own way, in my own terms,” there were no hard feelings.
“All’s well that ends well,” Obama said.
Administration officials who briefed reporters on the president’s decision to make public his support for same-gender marriage said Obama had changed his stance earlier this year. The president and about a half-dozen aides were still deliberating the time and place for the announcement when Biden made his remarks on “Meet the Press.”
The president’s advisers knew that Biden, though speaking on his own, would effectively be voicing a new policy when the recorded interview aired, according to the officials.
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4 Responses
Welcome to the summer of distractions
Thank you Joe Biden however the president didn’t have to agree with him (unless all socialist liberal democrats aren’t given permission to think for themselves on issues).
Yes, the president did have to agree with him, or he’d have lost his bundlers. Did you know that one in six 0bama bundlers is gay? He may not need the gay vote, but he definitely needs the gay dollar, because he’s not getting much else.
Are you kidding? This most probably was all planned out to happen this way so Obama could finally publicly support what he always privately held. And as is so often the case with our blamer-in-chief he has who to blame just in case his support backfires.