Vice President Biden bites his lip while speaking to students faculty and staff at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, Mass. Thursday, Oct. 2, 2014. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson)
On Thursday night, Vice President Biden joked with a fellow vice president — albeit of the Harvard student body, not the United States — that the job was "a bitch."
And while Biden's language was certainly colorful, he was far from the first in his position to express reservations about the gig, which no child has ever dreamed of being when they grow up. Here's a short, sad introduction to the long history of vice presidential grumping and making-fun-of-vice-presidents, beginning with our country's founding. It is sure to make all the vice presidents out there feel less than fuzzy inside.
John Adams, the first vice president: "I am Vice President. In this I am nothing, but I may be everything."
John Adams, the first person to utterly despise the vice presidency: "My country has in its wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived."
Founding father Robert Sherman: "If the vice-President were not to be President of the Senate, he would be without employment."
Former vice president Thomas R. Marshall: "Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again."
Teddy Roosevelt, before becoming vice president: "I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than Vice-President." (He also said that the position is "not a steppingstone to anything except oblivion.")
Former vice president John Nance Garner: "The vice presidency is not worth a bucket of warm piss." (He also said taking the job was "the worst damn fool mistake I ever made.")
Former vice president Harry Truman: "Look at all the Vice Presidents in history. Where are they? They were about as useful as a cow's fifth teat."
An aide describes LBJ's vice presidency: "It was a time of deprivation. He grew very fat and drank a lot. He took up some golf, I recall, but not with enthusiasm."
Former vice president Nelson Rockefeller discusses former vice president LBJ: "The 'real shocker,' he relates, was an encounter with an 'absolutely frustrated, absolutely furious' Lyndon Johnson in a hotel room in Miami where 'nobody was paying attention to him.'"
Former vice president Spiro Agnew: "It is a damned peculiar situation to be in, to have authority and a title and responsibility with no real power to do anything. I think it is the hardest adjustment for a man to make."
Former vice president Walter Mondale: "Over most of America's history, the vice president has been standby equipment."
A 1983 article on White House cats published in The Washington Post noted that, "being feline at the White House is only a little worse than being vice president."
Source: The Washington Post
Former vice president Dan Quayle: "The job is just awkward, an awkward job."
Dick Cheney, eight years before he became vice president: "It's an uncomfortable position to be in. The vice president is there sort of as an overall generalist. … He's here as the president's understudy, in a sense."
Presidential historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: "The vice presidency became a resting place for mediocrities."
And finally…
A character on "Veep" to one of Selina Meyer's staffers: "You're the secretary to the vice president. That's like being Garfunkel's roadie, okay?"
Jaime Fuller reports on national politics for "The Fix" and Post Politics. She worked previously as an associate editor at the American Prospect, a political magazine based in Washington, D.C.
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customFields- published 1412354935/1412354935000/1412354935 tracking: {post_id=114741, section={section=politics, subsection=null}, show_comments=true, content_category=Politics, authors=Jaime Fuller, show_ads=true, in_url_headline=a-brief-history-of-vice-presidents-bemoaning-the-vice-presidency, blog_name=the-fix} allow_comments: true published_date:Oct 3, 2014 4:48:55 PM close date: Oct 17, 2014 4:48:55 PM