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Via Paul Constant, at Seattle’s Stranger.
Transcript here, via David Kurtz at TPM, who adds:
Rarely do I watch Joe Biden give a speech or an interview without looking for some evidence, in his eyes or the lines of his face, of the fact that he lost half of his young family when he was 30 years old. It is inconceivable to me, always has been, but especially in the years since I became a father. For all his goofballism, Biden has gone through a crucible that I cannot imagine. And he did so when he was 30, an adult, already deeply invested in the life he was building….
WereBear
He grew up. And it shows.
DougJ
It was a great speech.
DougJ
And the TPM piece was right on the money. Joe Biden gets portrayed a bit of a goof ball but he’s been through a lot and he’s a thoroughly decent, honorable man.
Hal
Just saw a bit with Mitt “Mitt” Romney at the American Legiion *I think* and man does that guy come off as fake as hell. What pissed me off is him saying something to the effect that normally he would be there to discuss the differences between his policies and PBO, but today wasn’t the time or place. Except what you just said. Asshole.
Also, someone needs to tell him that pauses and moving your head left to right does not evoke a sense of empathy.
mai naem
I love the guy. Goofball and all. He’s just a decent person and it shows.
Brian R.
Wow, what a speech.
Humanities Grad
@Hal:
Nah, don’t tell him. Let him go on being the Mitt that much of America is coming to know and dislike.
mai naem
@mai naem: And BTW it gave us a great window into the kind of president Obama was going to be.
Narcissus
Biden has always impressed me. In 2008 if I hadn’t been for Obama I’d have been for Biden.
Mnemosyne
I think it was posted at the time, but his speech to TAPS for Memorial Day was also really terrific. Obviously, it was much more personal since he was speaking specifically to people who had lost a loved one in Iraq or Afghanistan.
There’s one great line in it where he says something about how he promises them that, someday, they will think of their loved one first with a smile, and then with a tear instead of the other way around.
Yes, I love my Crazy Uncle Joe.
Sly
The speech he gave to TAPS (Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors) back in May was a work of fucking art.
Mnemosyne
@Sly:
Jinx! :-)
quannlace
Plus in that speech he managed to get in a mention of the Utah Olympics…AGAIN.
Davis X. Machina
I am sorry, but the correct line is to despise Biden for his ties to Delaware-based consumer finance.
hildebrand
It was a quietly devastating speech. I must be getting sentimental, but Biden’s speech really hit me today.
Eric
The TAPS soeech is one of my favorite speeches. This one was also great. He is not bs-ing them. He is trying to reach them and lessen their pain.
aimai
Pray I will, sing I must, but yet I weep. What a speech. I didn’t even watch it, just read it, and I’m sitting here crying. I saw the TAPS speech when he gave it and it moved me to tears and put my own losses (as a child of my sister, as an adult of my nine year old niece) in a totally new perspective. I’ve really learned to love Biden.
aimai
Josie
He speaks so truthfully about living with the loss of a loved one and the comfort that memories bring. After ten years, my boys and I still tell stories and laugh about the funny things their father did. I always tell them when one of them reminds me of him in some way and they love to hear it. Joe knows all of these feelings and expresses them so beautifully. He is one classy guy.
Eric
Yes but he plagerized a bill for mbna. I have always wanted to ask joe about his support of a usurious industry on a human level. I would love to hear that answer. It rings so inconsistent with who appears to be.
Eta. I am sincere in my curiousity. His humanity strikes me as real
Soonergrunt
What an amazing speech.
It’s for damn sure that neither Rmoney nor Ryan could do that. One must be possessed of empathy, first.
@Eric: Because it is the major industry of the state that he represented in the US Senate, maybe?
Geeno
I’ve always called him Uncle Joe, because he reminds me of that avuncular uncle (in my own case uncle Bill), the guy who’s been through a lot and seen it all, but never lost his sense of humor and humanity along the way.
Eric
@Soonergrunt: I know. But the changes really hurt ordinary people. I wonder if he regrets it. I am not a total sap but i juat wonder
Violet
Love Joe Biden. Just love him. Grandma’s boyfriend, for sure. He’s got a heart of gold.
dance around in your bones
Joe Biden is a thoroughly genuine man. That speech moved me to tears.
@Hal:
Who was it who said Romney moves like a lawn sprinkler? Left-middle-right, left-middle-right… tinkle tinkle tinkle….
trollhattan
Parking Willard’s husk at the curb for a moment, I’ll compare and contrast Biden and John Edwards. Both endured unthinkable and similar tragedies–Biden became perhaps a better person from his experience, while Edwards…[shakes head].
I think the VP is an exceptional person. A mensch.
Geeno
@trollhattan: Mensch is a great word for Biden
JWL
Lest We Forget: Biden also voted to unleash the War In Iraq.
Remember that little Iraqi boy, whose arms were shorn from him by the same shell that killed his family?
I wonder if Biden remembers him? Has Biden ever experienced remorse for his role in the great tragedy? If he has, he’s certainly never indicated as much publicly.
Ann Rynd
I remember when he lost his family. This is the truth: I have never looked at him in the years since without thinking of how he has carried that pain all this time. I just see it in his face. In the way it’s just there, in his face.
SBJules
I have long forgiven Joe for the Clarence Thomas hearings (you had to have seen it) and admire his frank heart on sleeve stleeve style.
dogwood
@DougJ:
I thought you didn’t trust lifelong teatotalers, Doug.
Sly
@Eric:
There are a lot of pols throughout our history who had to cater to powerful interests that they would otherwise prefer to fight in order to advance their own goals, and consider doing so a fair trade-off. Many of these pols, like FDR and LBJ, went on to become canonized by modern Progressives; FDR had to placate the sizable white supremacist faction in the New Deal Coalition, while LBJ didn’t get out from under the thumb of Texas planters (who acted not much differently than slavemasters towards Mexican migrants and Mexican-American laborers) until his presidency. And that’s generally the test; do these same politicians remain beholden to these interests when they no longer need them to stay in office?
Biden was the same way with MBNA and the credit card industry in general, which is probably the most powerful political interest in Delaware. Crossing them would be like a West Virginia Senator crossing the coal industry, or a New York Senator crossing finance. And he hasn’t exactly been a contrarian voice within the administration or in public when it came to the Credit Card Bill of Rights or the CFPB. So even though I think BAPCA is one of the worst pieces of legislation to come out of the Federal government in decades, my scorn for Biden is somewhat dulled by the fact that he also authored one of the best.
Nellcote
@JWL:
circa 2007:
“It was a mistake,” he says in reply to a question about his vote to authorize the Iraq war. “I regret my vote.”
Joe Biden’s mouth can get him in trouble, but when it is working right, the words drop from his lips like pearls, and nodding heads now spread through the audience like ripples on a pond.
Biden’s full reply to the attendees of the Story County Annual Soup Supper takes 4 minutes and 45 seconds — it can take him 4 minutes and 45 seconds to say “hello” — but here is the short version:
“It was a mistake,” Biden says. “I regret my vote. I regret not realizing how incompetent (the Bush administration) would be. The president did not level with us. And if I had known it, I would never have voted to give him that authority in the first place.”
http://www.creators.com/opinion/roger-simon/joe-biden-and-the-mouth-that-soars.html
master c
so impressed with him.
master c
@master c: Biden.
Yutsano
@Geeno: That was my uncle Jim. He unfortunately passed away from a heart attack at 60 (another unfortunate family tradition) but he was ebullient and had great humour.
dogwood
@SBJules:
Whatever the result of the Clarence Thomas hearings, we all owe Joe Biden a debt of gratitude for keeping Robert Bork off the court. Those are the hearings I remember, and as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Joe orchestrated a take-down that was masterful. I frankly get pretty tired of Democrats who talk about Joe like he’s a crazy old goofball. He’s a smart, capable man who’s honest and decent. The Bork take-down and his passage of the Violence Against Women Act are a hellava lot more impressive than Dems. give him credit for. And I’m also pretty sick of this Iraq vote shit. When it comes to remembering what happened in politics, my memory is long and accurate. Progressives told me in ’07 that John Edwards’ was to be forgiven for his Iraq vote because he apologized, but now Joe doesn’t get the same consideration. Whose apology do you think is more sincere? Just goes to show you why it pays to be a phony in politics. It works.
AlladinsLamp
Often forgotton is the surgeey for repair of a brain aneuryism.
Two aneuryisms, actually.
AlladinsLamp
Often forgotten is Biden’s surgery for a brain aneuryism.
Two aneruyisms, actually.
dogwood
@SBJules:
Oops, sorry for the double post
James E. Powell
Joe has driven me crazy more times than I can count, but a part of me will always like a part of him. There are so few of these big shots who are anything close to an ordinary person. I’m not saying that Joe Biden is an ordinary person, but I am pretty sure he remembers what it was like to be one.
dogwood
@James E. Powell:
The thing is, Joe really does think he is an ordinary person. We might find that incredulous, but it’s how he sees himself, and I think it’s at least somewhat true. When Biden was in the Senate, he was always near the bottom, if not at the very bottom of the personal wealth category. Yet, Joe thinks he’s a rich guy. And by any ordinary person’s standard, he is. That’s the beauty of Biden; he might not live like an ordinary person, but he views himself, through the same lens than you or I would.
grandpa john
@dance around in your bones: How awful it must be for Romney to go through life without the ability to feel compassion and empathy, to go through life with no soul just being an empty shell
JWL
@Nellcote: That doesn’t cut it with me. I had Bush/Cheney pegged, along with millions of others around the planet.
And so did Biden. He put ambition before country, that’s all.
dance around in your bones
@grandpa john:
Yes. Once in awhile I feel a twinge of sympathy for him. It usually passes pretty quickly.
There is just no life in his eyes.