American vice presidents have historically held remarkably little political power. Shortly after his assumption to the presidency, Lyndon Johnson was asked about his own vice president, Hubert Humphrey.
"All that Hubert needs over there," he declared, "is a gal to answer the phone and a pencil with an eraser on it."
[In addition to the drunkard Andrew Johnson, the vice presidency ("the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived," according to the first vice president, John Adams) has been held by: a murderer (Aaron Burr), two men charged with treason (Burr and John Breckinridge), two accused of treason (John Calhoun and John Tyler), and two accused of accepting bribes (Schuyler Colfax and Spiro Agnew).]
