Why Joe Biden Wanted Barack Obama to Deliver His Son's Eulogy

Aides say the president and vice president have a bond that's beyond politics.
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Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama went through the fires together: two presidential campaigns, economic collapse, war, terrorism, destabilization of the Arab world, and societal change that spawned the Tea Party and gay marriage waves simultaneously.

But aides say it is the men's shared experience with personal grief, and an unexpected bonding of their wives, daughters, and grandchildren, more than their tests as officeholders, that have turned a political partnership between two men separated by race, age, and temperament into a deep, if mostly unsung, friendship.