Last year, Dick Cheney earned the moniker Fourthbranch:

The Oversight Committee has learned that over the objections of the National Archives, Vice President Cheney exempted his office from the presidential order that establishes government-wide procedures for safeguarding classified national security information. The Vice President asserts that his office is not an "entity within the executive branch."

Joe Biden appeared on This Week this morning and signaled that the Vice Presidency would be returning to the executive branch where it belongs.

"I don't agree with the vice president," he said in what was his first extensive interview since the election. Mr. Biden said he believed that the advice and recommendations Mr. Cheney had given President Bush "has been not healthy for our foreign policy, not healthy for our national security, and it has not been consistent with our constitution, in my view."

"His notion of a unitary executive, meaning that in time of war, essentially all power goes to the executive, I think is dead wrong, I think is mistaken," he said. It had had the effect, Mr. Biden added, "at a minimum to weaken our standing in world and weaken our security. I stand by that judgment."

While saying, of vice presidential powers, that "I think we should restore the balance here," he also declined to endorse a comment, attributed to an aide of his, that the office should be returned "to its historical role."

His role, Mr. Biden said, would be "to give the president of the United States the best, sagest, most accurate, most insightful advice and recommendations" he can offer.

Dick Cheney, in his usual bullying style, scoffed at his replacement on Fox News Sunday.

The current vice president, appearing on "Fox News Sunday," at one point brushed off Mr. Biden's attacks as "campaign rhetoric."

But he then pointedly criticized Mr. Biden's knowledge of the Constitution, saying that while Mr. Biden had taught constitutional law in Delaware and for years served on the Judiciary Committee, he "can't keep straight which article of the Constitution provides for the legislature and which provides for the executive."

Mr. Biden has said that Article I of the Constitution lays out the powers and responsibilities of the executive branch, but the vice president noted that it primarily deals with the legislative branch.

Mr. Cheney, after making his "campaign rhetoric" comment, then added, "I don't take it seriously, and if he wants to diminish the office of the vice president, that's obviously his call."

Good riddance, Fourthbranch.