Powerful VP?

David Brooks has an advice-columny column about why he thinks Obama should pick Joe Biden as his VP. At one point, he talks about how Biden's loyalty will be good to have:

...there are moments when a president has to go into the cabinet room and announce a decision that nearly everyone else on his team disagrees with. In those moments, he needs a vice president who will provide absolute support.

Does he? It was my understanding that, normally, the VP plays a fairly peripheral role in the White House, and isn't in a position to influence the president's decisions (Dick Cheney was a big exception to that).

So is it indeed the case that Obama will follow this trend of empowering the vice president, such that he/she would be in a position to wield serious influence? I don't think I've ever read anything on this or heard anything about it from Obama that would tell us one way or the other.