MixedThe Washington Postthe praise of Biden is largely descriptive — neither analytical nor revelatory...fine writerly language, but it raises deeper questions: How did Biden’s innate warmth affect their relationship? What did Obama learn from it? What, in turn, did Biden gain personally from his relationship with Obama? The answers would give us a sharper picture of each man and provide meaningful intelligence on our next president ... In the memoir, Obama is bracingly honest about the hardships of governance and the political realities of being president; he is eloquent on his life as father, husband and son...the president gazes mostly from a distance at his vice president. He lacks, or holds close to the vest, his conclusions about Biden, portraying him largely in prosaic, one-dimensional images ... Perhaps it shouldn’t be a surprise that the tale of the twosome remains mostly off-screen. The star of this show is Obama. He has expended considerable sweat on many yellow pads to construct a literary scaffolding on which to build his legacy. Yet the blunted portrait of Biden — Obama’s \'brother in arms,\' as one of his advisers described him to me — is a loss for all of us wishing to know this perceptive observer’s unique insights into our next president.
