WASHINGTON — When Vice President Joe Biden rolls into a room to
talk politics, frankly I am ready to laugh. He is, for me, the
gaffable Joe Biden. Remember when he told the perky Katie Couric
that during the great stock market crash of 1929 President Franklin
Roosevelt immediately “got on television” to reassure the American
people. Joe apparently reassured Miss Couric; yet others in the
audience who knew their history and recognized his gaffe got a huge
laugh at Joe’s expense. The president in 1929 was, of course,
Herbert Hoover, and there was no television. Or what about the
gaffable Vice President declaring, “The number one job facing the
middle class, and it happens to be as Barack says, a three-letter
word, jobs, j-o-b-s, jobs”? Good old Joe!
One could fill an entire chapter of a book with Joe’s
gaffes, possibly a whole book, possibly a whole bookshelf. By the
way, for to those of you who rely on Wikipedia, you will find just
one gaffe attributed to Joe in his entry. Yet I must admit I like
old Joe.
Even when he speaks acerbically his tongue has no sting.
In fact, when he does he invariably pauses to come up with a
propitiating grin. I remember when he was Chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee he grilled some Republican nominees with the
utmost stringency, but he rarely meant it. On the occasion of Ed
Meese’s nomination for Attorney General he was particularly sharp.
Afterwards he greeted Ed and Ed’s formidable wife Ursula in the
hallway and put his arm around Ed to show his stinging language was
not personal. Ursula lit into him with the disdain that only a lady
of quality can muster. Joe withdrew like an injured pup. He is not
built for combat, only for BS-ing. Later his questioning of Judge
Samuel Alito moved Mrs. Alito to tears. Once again he was shocked.
Joe is really a lot of fun, at least for those who do not take his
guff seriously.
That is why when it was reported this week that a CNN poll
conducted with ORC International found a significant number of
Democrats ready for a candidate that was not Barack Obama I thought
of Joe. Fully 27 percent — slightly more than one in four —
Democrats queried affirmed that they “think the
Democratic Party should nominate a different candidate for
president in 2012.” Joe, this is your chance. You have always
wanted to be Numero Uno. You have put your name forward more than
once. Now is the time to leap to the defense of your country, even
if you did get five deferments from you draft board and in 1968
were disqualified from future disruptions of your schedule for
asthma. Asthma, why did you not think of that earlier?
Actually I thought Joe would grasp the Democratic
presidential nomination in 1988 before he was caught plagiarizing
British Labour Party Leader Neil Kinnock’s recollections of an
early life spent in the cruel Welsh coalmines. He even claimed
Kinnock’s relatives as his own. And oh yes, there was that
revelation of earlier plagiarism that Joe committed in law school.
He released a 65-page file obtained from Syracuse University
College of Law, containing his transcript and the details of his
plagiarism. He released it, arguing that it reinforced his claim
that the plagiarism has not been “malevolent.” It did disclose that
he had filched fully five pages from a law review article “without
quotation or attribution” for his 15-page paper. The
file also disclosed that he graduated 76th out of 85, and that in
his undergraduate days he got C’s or D’s in his first three
semesters, with an F in ROTC.
There was one other revelation that appeared about Joe at
this time. He claimed to be active in the civil rights and antiwar
movements. That too was garbagespiel.
During his run for the presidency in
1987, a transcript surfaced of his 1983 speech to the
New Jersey Democratic State Convention wherein he rang out with,
“When I was 17, I participated in sit-ins to desegregate
restaurants and movie houses.” He gassed on, “And my stomach turned
upon hearing the voices of Faubus and Wallace. My soul raged on
seeing Bull Connor and his dogs.” This too he later quietly
disavowed. Joe Biden of the raging soul — I like that.
Still, I say, I like Joe. Today writers at the The
American Spectator, National Review, and the
Weekly Standard are inveighing against him for apparently
endorsing the brutal abortion and sterilization operations that go
on in China pursuant to its one-child policy. Yes, I will agree,
Joe’s regard for human rights in China appeared insouciant during
his tour there. But one has to remember: Joe does not mean it. His
spokesman later said he found the policy “repugnant.”
Yet, you might say, why should he run for the Democratic
presidential nomination? Well, I am finishing a book, and my
researches indicate that all leading Democratic candidates
for the presidency suffer these blots on their records. I call it
the Chappaquiddick Dispensation. Ever since Teddy Kennedy eluded
justice at Chappaquiddick, a scandal that would
otherwise kill off a candidate can easily be transcended, thanks to
the complicit national media. That is called the Taranto Principle.
The press gives the Democrat a pass, and the rogues on the
Democratic side proliferate. Joe is a rogue, but so are most of the
other potential Democratic candidates. So Joe, I say here is your
chance. Think of the scandals in President Obama’ past. Against
Joe, Obama is toast.
