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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsJoe Biden: 'I Wish to Hell I'd Just Kept Saying the Exact Same Thing'
The vice president looks back and forward.
By JONATHAN ALTER JAN. 17, 2017
Joe Bidens personal compartment on the modified Boeing 757 that serves as Air Force Two had the feel of a motel managers office equipped with state-of-the-art communications gear. The room held a little black couch with a pullout bed he had slept on more times than he could count over the last eight years, during which he logged more than a million miles aloft. We were en route back to Wilmington, Del., from Cartagena, Colombia, in early December, and Biden was sitting in a black leather seat with a binder in his lap.
It contained the speech he had given at the Democratic National Convention in July. He told me he had been rereading it. He began reciting aloud: If you live in neighborhoods like the one Jill and I grew up in, if you worry about your job and getting decent pay. ... His voice accelerated. If you worry about your childrens education, if youre taking care of an elderly parent, theres only one person in this race who. ... He looked up at me and sighed. I wish to hell Id just kept saying the exact same thing.
Biden was afflicted with regret. He was sorry that, on the campaign trail, he had spoken so often about Donald Trumps unfitness for office and not enough about what Hillary Clinton would do for the middle class. He was sorry he didnt push harder inside the White House for a middle-class tax cut. And he was still torn over his decision not to run for president, a race that he said would have been brutal but that he also believed he could have won.
I spoke with Biden intermittently in the months before and after Election Day, and I had no doubt as to why he didnt jump in. He was still corny, gabby, lovable Uncle Joe, the guy who once said: Stand up, Chuck! Let em see you! to a man in a wheelchair. But nearly every speech and interview now included some moving mention of his son Beau, who died of brain cancer in 2015, and how much Biden was doing, and intended to continue to do for the rest of his life, to speed the search for cancer cures.
I saw Biden cry in Manchester, N.H., in October when holding an infant that he was told was named after Beau. I saw him near tears in West Mifflin, Pa., the weekend before the election, when he was joined onstage by the former Pittsburgh Steelers Franco Harris and Mel Blount which reminded him of the footballs the team owner sent to young Beau and his brother, Hunter, in the hospital after they were injured in the 1972 car accident that killed Bidens first wife and baby girl.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/magazine/joe-biden-i-wish-to-hell-id-just-kept-saying-the-exact-same-thing.html?emc=edit_ta_20170117&nlid=57435284&ref=cta&_r=0
bdamomma
(63,652 posts)I was so happy when President Obama made him his VP. Both outstanding men.
madokie
(51,076 posts)he's as close to a regular Joe as we've had in elected office in my lifetime. I'm convinced of that
WhiteTara
(29,676 posts)mainstreetonce
(4,178 posts)is more complicated than we know ,and I think he might change his mind about 2020.
I heard someone predict it today. When Trump messes up, experience will the most important factor next time.
Blue_Roses
(12,894 posts)...always stands up for the little guy. Damn, I'm already missing this administration.
Hassin Bin Sober
(26,272 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 18, 2017, 01:01 AM - Edit history (1)