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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/us/politics/biden-said-to-apologize-to-obama-over-gay-marriage-issue.html

Biden Said to Apologize to Obama Over Gay Marriage Issue

WASHINGTON — A few hours before President Obama offered his historic endorsement of same-sex marriage on Wednesday, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. apologized to the president in the Oval Office for forcing Mr. Obama’s hand by airing his own views three days earlier, several people briefed on the exchange said on Thursday.

Mr. Biden declared in an interview on Sunday that he was “absolutely comfortable” with same-sex marriage, a position that went considerably further than the president’s “evolving” views on the matter and scrambled the White House’s carefully laid plans for confronting one of the most sensitive social issues in the election.

Mr. Obama, in an interview with ABC News, said the vice president had gotten “a little bit over his skis” but had done so “out of generosity of spirit.” The president bore Mr. Biden no lingering ill will, according to several officials, though the episode enraged Mr. Obama’s senior advisers in the White House and on the campaign.

It was easily the biggest incidence of crossed wires between the garrulous vice president and his more button-down boss, in an administration that has been marked by occasional eruptions by Mr. Biden. And its effect was magnified both because it involved a fraught social issue and because it came just as the general election campaign is heating up.

People who know both men said they did not believe that Mr. Biden had an ulterior motive in pre-empting the president, despite the fact that he has not ruled out running for president himself in 2016. Indeed, several gay rights activists said, whatever affection Mr. Biden’s candor might have won him with gay voters, he would still lag behind other potential Democratic candidates like Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, who are both seen as champions of the gay community.

Mr. Biden has said nothing publicly since his remarks on the NBC program “Meet the Press.” But he has told staff members at the White House that he regrets putting the president in an awkward spot, several officials said. These officials declined to characterize his precise remarks to Mr. Obama, or Mr. Obama’s response.

The White House had planned for the president to endorse same-sex marriage as soon as next Monday, when he was scheduled to give an interview to the ABC program “The View.” Instead, in the wake of Mr. Biden’s interview, the president’s aides hastily scheduled an interview Wednesday with Robin Roberts of ABC News.


Eric D. Schwerin
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