Dead Presidents

“Remember, I got criticized for saying I support gay marriage….I just decided I couldn’t be quiet about it anymore, and everybody was stunned that that’s where the public is.  And I’m not stunned; it’s where the public’s been for a while.  Talk to any of your kids, for God’s sake.” 

— Vice President Joe Biden, The Rolling Stone Interview by Douglas Brinkley

If you missed Part I, featuring John Kerry, you’re lucky.  If you survived Part I, you’re now in a better place because it’s time for my favorite member of the Obama Administration, one of my favorite Democratic politicians of my lifetime, and, let’s be real, the greatest thing to ever come out of Delaware (even though he was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania — Dunder Mifflin represent!) — the 47th Vice President of the United States of America, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.!

•People can disagree about politics and policies and social issues and a myriad of other flashpoints, but how can anyone dislike Joe Biden?  Sure, maybe you wouldn’t vote for him, but wouldn’t you love to hang out and watch a football game with him?  It’s easy to hammer him about his gaffes, but I would wager that no one who has worked closely with him has ever said, “I hate that Biden guy.”
•And he immediately sweet-talks his wife.  This is a man who knows where his bread is buttered, if I can use a phrase that makes me sound like an 80-year-old man.
•Wow, it’s taken me this long to realize that the Vice President’s daughter is hot?  What’s my problem?  Hello, Ashley Biden. 
•With that said, I feel it’s important to note that Abby Huntsman still holds they key to my heart.  Also, a restraining order.
•No current American politician is as good as Bill Clinton, but Vice President Biden is a very underrated speaker with a similarly natural, folksy delivery.  Sure, he slips up from time-to-time and says something dumb, but I still feel like he’s an underrated orator.
•Joe asked Jill to marry him five times and “I don’t know what I would have done on that fifth time had you said no.”  Come on, how can you not love Joe Biden?
•As a speaker, Biden is usually hot or cold.  When he’s cold and undisciplined, he trips up and says something goofy.  Just a few minutes in tonight and the VP is on fire.  Great delivery so far.
•As good as Clinton was on Wednesday night, Biden’s speech is tighter, less rambling.  This is one of his better speeches ever.
•I’m glad John Kerry showed up earlier so that I could be mean-spirited because I don’t have much to be a smart-ass about with the Vice President.
•”Loyalty” is definitely the one word I’d use to describe the Biden Vice Presidency.  By the nature of the office’s historical evolution, it is the recent VPs, particularly Mondale, G.H.W. Bush, Gore, Cheney, and Biden (and, to a lesser extent, Nixon and LBJ), who stand head-and-shoulders above the rest.  I think Cheney was more powerful, but Biden is better and more helpful to his President.  If I were to rank the “best” Vice Presidents in history, I think it would be Gore at #1 and Biden at #2.
•Speaking of Al Gore…where the hell has he been?  He split with Tipper and there were those allegations of some misconduct with a masseuse and now he’s Democratic persona non grata, isn’t he?
•I wonder if Gore, John Edwards, and Jimmy Carter are sitting somewhere all pissed off because the Democratic Party intentionally gave them the wrong directions.
•I can just imagine those three calling and trying to make arrangements for the Convention while Debbie Wasserman-Schultz tells them, “Oh, that’s weird…we totally sent your tickets to you…..Yeah, those were the only ones available, so if you can’t find them, I’m really sorry………You know, there’s a lot of television coverage and that’s much better than being in the arena………No, of course we’re not hiding you like the GOP hides George W. Bush during Convention time.”
•If any party delegates — Republican or Democratic — are reading this, do you realize how silly your dumb hats look?  Nominating a President and building a party platform is important work; it’s not New Year’s Eve in Times Square.
•The Vice President is giving one hell of a speech.  This is way better than I expected.
•It drives me crazy to see people in the audience watching the speech through their phone or iPad screen.  IT’S HAPPENING RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU!  JUST EXPERIENCE IT!
•”God love Jennifer Granholm.  Wasn’t she great?” — No, I’ve gotta disagree with you there, Mr. Vice President, she came across like a lunatic.  I thought she was going to end her speech with “Cocaine’s a helluva drug.”
•Oooh…I want one of those circular UAW Obama/Biden signs!  Those things look badass!
•Damn, they got a whole wheelchair section on the floor of the Convention hall.  They should call it the “FDR Section” just to be cute and see if anybody complains.
•Biden halted the crowd when they booed Mitt Romney’s name and said, “I don’t think he’s a bad guy.”  Thank you, Mr. Vice President.  We don’t have to hate each other to disagree with each other’s politics.  Except for Rick Santorum.  We should definitely hate him.
•”Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive” really is a good tag line.
•With Biden’s reputation for verbal gaffes, I bet President Obama and his aides hold their breath every time the Vice President gets that smirk on his face before he finishes one of his punchlines.
•The Vice Presidential candidate’s usual role at Conventions is to be the hatchet man (or woman), but Biden’s not doing a hatchet job; he’s giving a very focused speech.
•I’m sorry, guys, I just don’t have much to poke fun at here.  I’ve been a fan of Vice President Biden for a long time, but I’ve never seen him like this.  That was undoubtedly the best speech of Joe Biden’s life and I think it even rivaled President Clinton’s barn-burner from Wednesday night.  Damn solid speech, Mr. Vice President.  I’m proud to have Joe Biden on my side.

We’ll finish this up in Part III with the main event as President Obama accepts the Democratic nomination for a second term as President.

Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption
By Jules Witcover
Hardcover. 536 pp.
October 5, 2010.  William Morrow

Over the years, I have often felt and frequently been told that my lifelong passion for Presidential History has been somewhat unique and a definite niche hobby.  I’m fine with that and have even embraced it.  With the popularity of Dead Presidents, I actually have found that my passion is not as unusual as I once thought, but Jules Witcover really is an expert is a niche subject.  A prolific author, longtime political reporter, and well-respected historian, Witcover is probably the preeminent (and perhaps only) VICE PRESIDENTIAL historian and has written several books on Vice Presidents and the Vice Presidency including this most recent title, Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption (2010, William Morrow) on our current Vice President, Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. of Delaware.

In Joe Biden, Witcover tells the story of Vice President Biden’s fascinating rise in American politics and a life that would be hard-to-believe if it wasn’t so very real.  The 47th Vice President was born in the working-class town of Scranton, Pennsylvania in 1942 and moved to Delaware as a child.  While growing up, Biden excelled at sports and socializing, overcoming a severe stuttering problem, but not exactly establishing himself as a prodigy at school.  Biden’s grades were never impressive, but he got by on his personality and natural charisma.  As he entered college, Biden was unsure of what he wanted to do for his career but drifted towards politics by way of studying law, first at the University of Delaware and then at Syracuse University’s College of Law.

Biden chose Syracuse because he had fallen in love with Neilia Hunter after meeting her during a Spring Break trip with friends to the Bahamas in 1964.  Witcover tells the story of Biden’s love and life with Neilia, who he was instantly taken by.  The feeling was mutual and the couple was virtually inseparable despite the distance between his Delaware home and her home near Syracuse, New York.  Because of Neilia’s location — and for no other reason — Biden specifically chose to attend Syracuse.  His academic struggles continued at Syracuse, but Biden worked hard when he had to and graduated in 1968.  He was admitted to the Delaware State Bar a year later and began work as a lawyer in Wilmington.

While at law school in Syracuse in 1966, Biden and Neilia were married despite the initial misgivings of Neilia’s parents due to Biden’s Catholicism.  After starting to practice corporate law in Wilmington, Biden quickly became dissatisfied with what he was doing and started wondering whether or not it was too early to begin his political career.  Most Delawareans and close advisors told Biden that he was too young, but Biden felt otherwise.  In 1969, he ran for the New Castle County Council and surprisingly won his normally Republican district.  Two years later, he took a bigger leap.

In Joe Biden, Witcover does a great job of explaining Biden’s mindset and personality, which makes seemingly risky decisions — like running for the United States Senate in 1972 at the age of 29 against a popular incumbent who had been in elected office in Delaware nearly as long as Biden had been alive — make sense.  Biden is a fighter and always has been, and not a patient fighter, at that.  When he challenged Cale Boggs in 1972, Biden wasn’t even Constitutionally eligible to take his seat in the United States Senate until two weeks after his election victory.  Running a smart, positive, and respectful campaign, Biden and his young family and energetic campaign style connected with the people of Delaware and he narrowly defeated the veteran Senator Boggs.  At just 30 years old, Biden was about to become one of the youngest Senators in American History.

Just two weeks before he was about to be sworn in to the Senate, however, Biden’s life took a tragic turn.  On December 18, 1972, his beloved wife Neilia and his 1-year-old daughter Naomi were killed in a car accident while Christmas shopping in Delaware.  His two sons, Beau, 3, and Hunter, 2, were critically injured in the accident.  Angry and despondent, Biden decided that he would resign his position before taking his seat in order to care for his two young sons.  The powerful Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, however, saw that the Senate — and particularly the Democratic Party — needed Biden and that the crestfallen Biden needed the Senate.  By offering plum committe placements for a freshman and giving Biden tons of moral support, he persuaded Biden to take his Senate seat.  Biden took the oath of office in the hospital room of his injured sons and commuted daily from Wilmington, Delware to Washington, D.C. via Amtrak in order to be home every night for his boys.  The 90-minute Amtrak ride from Delaware to Washington became a tradition that Biden continued for his entire 36 years in the Senate.

After some initial trouble, Biden quickly found his way in the Senate and the tragic events which took the lives of his wife and daughter drove him to be an even better father for his boys than Senator for Delaware.  As Witcover explains in Joe Biden, there was never a time that Biden ever sacrificed his family for his career, believing strongly that Delaware could always find another Senator but his sons could never find another father.  Family has always been a big thing for Biden.  His campaign manager early in his career was his sister, Valerie, and his father, mother, and brothers were a strong support system throughout his career.  Biden found inspiration and learned lessons from his family history.  Due to some instances of alcoholism in other branches of his family, Biden has been a lifelong teetotaler.  Throughout his long and busy career, Biden has remained devoted to his family.

That is just the beginning of Joe Biden’s remarkable career.  Throughout his book, Jules Witcover gives examples of Biden’s tenacity, famed loquaciousness, indefatigable work ethic, and steady rise through the Senate leadership.  Only thirteen Senators in American History have served in the Senate longer than Joe Biden and Jules Witcover chronicles Biden’s important role as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, and longtime membership on the Senator Foreign Relations Committee.  For years, Biden was one of the most important voices in Foreign Relations in American government — a big reason for his choice as Vice President by Barack Obama in 2008.

As the title denotes, Biden’s life is truly one of trial and redemption.  With the triumphs came troubles besides the tragedy.  Biden suffered two life-threatening brain aneurysms and his 1988 campaign for the Presidency was derailed by accusations of plagiarism.  Biden’s famous loquaciousness has often caused him trouble due to verbal gaffes or blunt comments that some have found offensive.  It is that same verbosity, combined with his supreme self-confidence and real political skill, which has made Biden a refreshing politician in a world of filters and censorship.

In 2008, Biden once again made a run for the Presidency, but quickly bowed out when it became clear that he couldn’t overcome the popularity and excitement for Democratic rivals Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John Edwards.  But campaigning against each other in the early primary contests and Democratic debates helped build a relationship between Obama and Biden that had never found ground in the Senate.  Biden’s abilities and qualifications made an impression on Obama and Biden found Obama to be a serious, capable leader.  After Obama clinched the nomination, Biden suggested that he give the Vice Presidency to Hillary Clinton.  Obama vetted a long list of potential VP’s, but Rahm Emanuel — later Obama’s Chief of Staff — felt that Obama always knew his choice would be Biden.

The Vice Presidency may not have been the culmination Joe Biden saw for his career, but he has taken the role on as a great honor and served President Obama loyally.  In Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption Jules Witcover talks about why Biden took the Vice Presidential nomination, what the position means to him, and details the first Catholic Vice President’s close, candid, sometimes tumultuous relationship with President Obama.

Joe Biden’s story is an American epic and Jules Witcover is the best journalist and historian around to tell us about this Vice President’s life.  Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption was released by William Morrow on October 5, 2010.  It is available in your local independent bookstore, at larger retailers, online at Amazon, and through Harper Collins. 

Obama’s Wars
By Bob Woodward
Hardcover. 441 pp.
2010. Simon & Schuster

“I’m inheriting a world that could blow up any minute in half a dozen ways, and I will have some powerful but limited and perhaps even dubious ways to keep it from happening.” — President-elect Barack Obama, to one of his closest aides, talking about the state of the world prior to his inauguration

In the early-1970’s, Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein helped uncover the secret White House taping system that revealed the extent of the Watergate scandal and brought down Richard Nixon.  I wonder when Bob Woodward’s secret White House taping system will be revealed.

For nearly four decades, Woodward, now an associate editor at the Washington Post, has brought forth the inner workings of Presidents Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and, now, with Obama’s Wars (2010, Simon & Schuster), Barack Obama.

Woodward’s sources are very close to the highest levels of government.  In fact, Woodward’s sources are likely leaders who happen to be the highest levels of government.  With a rich arsenal of materials ranging from meeting notes, memoranda, first-hand accounts, and interviews with principals, Bob Woodward has crafted a story focusing on Barack Obama’s inheritance of the Afghanistan War from George W. Bush.

What I love about Woodward’s books — and I have read and loved all of them — are the vivid descriptions of people, places, and events that only a journalist of Woodward’s stature can relate to readers.  I like picturing the pained or frustrated reaction on President Obama’s face or the nervous energy of Rahm Emanuel during interminable meetings in the White House Situation Room.  I appreciate the description of events such as a solemn midnight visit by the President to Dover Air Force Base to meet the caskets of deceased soldiers returning to the United States for burial.  I am captivated by reading the actual deliberations — in their own unique language — of the people responsible for running our country.

Obama’s Wars is a sobering look at the disconnect between the White House and the military, and how an exasperated, rookie President took the reins of powers and attempted to shift an entire broken strategy towards a realistic, acceptable goal.  Barack Obama does not come across in this book as anything less than a logical, forward-thinking leader.  Presidents make mistakes and Obama’s mistake may have been in waiting too long to make a decisive decision about the direction of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, but it’s hard to fault the President when the military appears to be narrow-sighted, stubborn, and borderline insubordinate when dealing with the new President.

As with every Woodward book, the cast of characters in Obama’s Wars is vast and the story is peppered frequently with acronyms that would be difficult to keep track of without the handy glossary that Woodward always includes.  The cast of Obama’s Wars are the political and military leaders at the highest levels of government in the United States, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.  Reading Obama’s Wars makes you worry about the strategic command of our military leadership, the mental capacity of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and the intestinal fortitude of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.  

There are always people in Woodward’s books who stand out.  President Obama is portrayed positively, pushing the military for better options, constantly questioning situations, and decisively stating his case.  Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is cautious and almost beyond reproach; perhaps the most valuable link between Obama’s White House and the military brass in the field and the Pentagon.  National Security Adviser James L. Jones (who announced his resignation last week) seems lost in his role, divided between his position as the President’s chief counsel on national security and his former career as a Marine General.

The military leaders are most worrisome.  General David Petraeus is depicted as the man who successfully turned around the Iraq War in 2007, but also as someone who is attempting to apply the same tactics from Iraq in Afghanistan, almost to a fault.  Petraeus also appears to be positioning himself for a potential run at the Presidency, even if he denies it frequently, through his numerous television appearances and speeches.  General Stanley McChrystal, who was fired by Obama in June due to derogatory comments he made in a Rolling Stone interview, is less abrasive and more capable than I expected.

Yet, the biggest surprise in the book and in Obama’s Administration is Vice President Joe Biden.  Biden, of course, talks too much and probably pushes too hard at times, but Biden’s experience and toughness translates throughout Obama’s Wars.  The Vice President has a strategy of his own for Afghanistan and Pakistan and works hard at promoting it.  Biden’s intelligence is underrated and his ability should make everyone feel comfortable that he is one of the the most powerful people in the world.  Woodward portrays Biden as a relentless voice for realism and political feasibility in the Obama White House and someone who everyone listens to, even if he tends to get a bit long-winded.  Biden gives Obama a credibility with the military that Obama might not have been able to quickly attain on his own.

Of course I loved Obama’s Wars.  Bob Woodward gets us closer to the inner workings of the White House than anyone else can other than the inner workers of the White House — and they won’t talk to us.  Fortunately, they talk to Bob Woodward and we are better informed because of it.  Woodward would probably want to be called a reporter, not a historian, but he reports history and he does so in a journalistic manner — with objectivity, clarity, and purpose.  It’s a tribute to Woodward’s style and intent that the reader can’t tell what his political beliefs are.  It’s a monument to his execution and expertise that the reader doesn’t need to know.  What is important is that Obama’s Wars, like all of Woodward’s books, is well-rounded, informative, and a valuable, critical display of our government at work — not how it worked at one point, but how it is working now.

Obama’s Wars by Bob Woodward can be found at your local independent bookstore, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and available for download on iTunes.