What It Takes

by Richard Ben Cramer

  In fact, Joe had told Jimmy, he thought the White House was bound to come after him, once it dawned on the Reaganauts that their beloved judge might go down the tubes.

  And Caddell was stomping around Joe’s house—sure it was Shrum. Now that Doak and Shrum were working for Gephardt ... come on! ... Wasn’t it just like that snake Shrum? He’d do anything to bleed Pat’s candidate.

  Everybody was at the house for the big rehearsal, day before the hearings. Tribe was playing Bork in the ballroom again. They had Scott Miller, from David Sawyer’s firm, to work the videotapes ... watched by the committee staff, the campaign staff, the Wilmington staff, the family ... it looked like a wedding.

  It was the finals of the U.S. Open that day, so between takes, everybody watched tennis. That day, a magazine had printed Gail Sheehy’s latest opus, a machine-gun attack on Gary Hart ... and everyone who’d ever known him. Hart had been out of the race for months—and she was still driving her heels into his skull. Joe couldn’t believe it.

  “Shit, I mean, she says he was lousy at tennis ... in high school!”

  But that wasn’t Biden’s life. People were welcome to look at Biden’s life. And they would! Ridley told Joe that day: “By the end of this week, you’re gonna be a household name in America.”

  Joe said: “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Just joking.

  They joked a lot that day, until dark—people were leaving—when Rasky got the call from The San Jose Mercury News. He called the reporter back from Joe’s kitchen phones.

  The reporter asked:

  What about these lines from the California speech? ... Weren’t those lifted? You know, plagiarized? They were straight from Bobby Kennedy!

  They wanted character? They wanted to see what he was made of? ... Biden would show them. He and the staff jerked around the opening-day schedule so the chairman’s statement would come last—in the afternoon, when the networks were running live.

  Meanwhile, let everybody else have his say. Alan Simpson, the Republican whip, started in on the process—how self-important we Senators are, as judges of the judges (when Simpson slips into his Will Rogers mode, he can aw-shucks the Senate for hours). “And, once in this room, unlike a defendant in a court of law, the nominee is not guaranteed any single right ...”

  After that. Biden broke in, and in the span of fifteen seconds, he dispensed with complaints about his fairness—one smile and a jaunty wave of his gavel ... a gorgeous sound-bite:

  “Judge Bork, I guarantee you that this little mallet is going to assure you every single right for you to make your views known ... as long as it takes, on any ground you wish to make them. That’s a guarantee [Biden smile]. So you do have rights in this room, and I will assure you they will be protected.”

  Joe Biden, Defender of the Constitution! (And, lo, even its wayward disciples.) That bite showed up on the news that night, along with Biden’s noble prose about the God-given rights of mankind.

  In the grand Senate Caucus Room, an echoing temple of marble pilasters and an acre of tables for the nation’s press, eyebrows raised as Biden laid it on ever thicker: the terrific respect Bork’s record inspired ... the awesome Constitutional scholarship that Bork’s writings bespoke ... the difficulty which the citizenry (and certainly a plain ol’ workin’ lawyer like Joe Biden) might have, following the elegant reason of Bork’s jurisprudence. ...

  It was cloying. But as Biden swung into his questions, he knew exactly ... how he had to be. He was the eager student, trying to understand—you know, in the common words ... why it was, that the venerated judge ... (“I’m not trying to be picky here; I mean, clearly, I don’t want to get into a debate with a professor, but...”) why did Bork think it was okay to put cops in our bedrooms?

  Why did Bork say a married couple had no more right to be free in their bed than a company had to be free of pollution laws?

  “I mean,” Joe said, through a bristle of Biden smile, “isn’t that what you’re saying?”

  And Bork fell into the quicksand. He played professor to eager Joe.

  “No, not entirely,” he said. “But I’ll straighten it out. I was objecting to the way Justice Douglas, in that opinion, Griswold against Connecticut, derived this right. It may be possible to derive an objection to an anticontraceptive statute in some other way—I don’t know. But starting from the assumption—which is an assumption for the purposes of my argument, not a proven fact—starting from the assumption that there is nothing in the Constitution in any legitimate method of Constitutional reasoning about either subject, all I’m saying is that the judge has no way to prefer one to the other, and the matter should be left to the legislatures, who will then decide which competing ratification or freedom should be placed higher.”

  Biden nodded, concerned, through his smile. “Well, then, I think I do understand it ...”

  Yes, he did. Bork kept talking about originalist jurisprudence, neutral principles of Constitutional reasoning, the bankruptcy of the theory of penumbral emanations ... while Biden talked about cops in our bedrooms!

  The text of this exchange would take up a full page in the next day’s New York Times. Biden just wanted to be sure, you know ... he could understand, exactly ...

  Bork couldn’t see any right of privacy—not in the reasoning of that case ... right?

  Some other case?

  Well, no.

  “Well, can you tell me ...” Biden’s voice was honey. “You’ve been a professor now for years and years ... everybody’s pointed out, and I’ve observed, you’re one of the most well read and scholarly people to come before this committee ... in all your [Biden smile] short life ... have you come up with any other way to protect a married couple, under the Constitution, against an action by a government, telling them what they can or cannot do about birth control in their bedroom? Is there any Constitutional right ... anywhere in the Constitution?

  Bork: “I assume ... I have never engaged in that exercise ...”

  BANGO!

  In the boiler room that the gurus set up outside Joe’s office, there were whoops of delight. “That exercise! ...”

  “That’s it,” they told Joe, when the hearings closed.

  “You got him.”

  “God, that answer!”

  But Biden was without elation.

  That night, he didn’t hang around. He went to dinner with Jimmy and Val. He was quiet, wary ... every network news show had the same two stories at the top of the show: Bork’s debacle ... and Biden’s copied speeches.

  “What we didn’t figure,” Joe said at dinner, “was the stakes—the Court ... and the White House.”

  Joe didn’t talk about Bork that night, but about Jimmy’s bankruptcy, Val’s divorce, his own law school course where they flunked him, he didn’t footnote ...

  It was sinking in on Joe. There were people he didn’t even know who’d sooner destroy him than see him win. And the press didn’t care. If they had to make Biden the issue, they would. What the fuck did they care about Biden?

  “I don’t see ...” Joe said. “I mean, I don’t see there’s anywhere they stop ...”

  65

  Just, Why?

  THE HOSPITAL WAS IN a tough neighborhood, bad streets, and dark. If the boys could sleep, Joe and Jimmy would walk those streets, half the night. They’d tell the nurses they were going out for pizza ... but they wouldn’t eat.

  They didn’t even talk. The sound was their shoes on grit, or broken glass. ... Joe was hoping someone would jump out from an alley, come at him. He would’ve killed the guy. He was looking for a fight. There was no place for his rage.

  Sometimes he thought it would be easier ... if he were the only one left ... then he could kill himself. It was the boys, kept him alive.

  He wasn’t alone. Jimmy saw to that, and Mom-Mom, every day ... and Val, who would move into his house, into Northstar. ... But Joe was alone ... or worse. He’d lost himself.

  It wasn’t even, Why me?

  Just, Why?
<
br />   Neilia never did anything ... she took care of everyone. His daughter! She was the closest thing on this earth to perfect. They called her Caspy because she looked like Casper, the Friendly Ghost. His joke ...

  He used to say ... he ...

  What did he matter? He didn’t. That was obvious. All of it, all of them—all they’d done—did not matter. Gone.

  People came up to him, talked about the Senate ... his friends, told him he had to take his seat.

  “That’s what you are, Joe, you’re a Senator.”

  What did they know about what he was? He didn’t give a damn about the Senate. That wasn’t what he was. What was he?

  He functioned. He talked to them, told them thanks. Or he thought he did. He didn’t know what he said. What’d it matter?

  Mike Mansfield would call every day, talk to Jimmy. How’s Joe? We gotta get him down here. We gotta get him occupied. We gotta get him back in the mainstream. Mansfield was great, like the other older Senators. Hubert Humphrey was a man of infinite compassion.

  Jimmy told them not to come for the funeral.

  Joe wanted no one but family at the funeral.

  There was grumbling in Delaware—people had to pay respects.

  Fuck them.

  It rained the night of the memorial service, rained like hell, and people lined up. They felt they had to come. Bob Byrd was there, standing in the rain, waiting.

  Joe would remember that, in the Senate. He was going to the Senate. At least, he’d try ... try to be a father, and a Senator. He took his oath in the hospital, with the boys, and the cameras. People thought it was some kind of stunt.

  Fuck them.

  Second day of the Bork hearings, when they got the call about the law school stuff, Rasky didn’t know anything about it. Donilon didn’t know. They asked Jimmy.

  “Oh, yeah, that ...”

  What the hell did Jimmy mean—oh, that?

  “Joe was just talking about that, at dinner.”

  Jimmy told them the outline—one course, Joe flunked. Someone thought he was trying to cheat, but he wasn’t. It was just a mistake.

  That day, they asked Joe’s old law school friend, Bob Osgood, a partner now in a New York firm, to fly up to Syracuse, get the records, bring them back. Osgood was back in five hours.

  That was already too long. The press calls were coming in from everywhere. That was the scary thing. Everybody in the country was hunting up something on Joe.

  The first to ask about law school was Legal Times ... then CBS ... then the papers. They were all talking to someone ... or to each other. Biden was a plagiarist—from twenty years ago! ... It was so neat! ... The pack smelled blood again.

  A guy from the Journal had a Jones about Joe never taking a drink. He must have had a drink sometime. The Wall Street Journal was out to prove—Biden must’ve had a drink sometime.

  The Philadelphia Inquirer was sniffing around Joe’s civil rights claims. ... That, and the Inquirer meant to prove: Joe didn’t really give the high school graduation speech.

  There was an endless rolling meeting in Joe’s conference room. Val and Jimmy, of course, and Donilon, Caddell, Marttila, Ridley, Rasky, Ted Kaufman, Vallely, Lowell Junkins from Iowa, Bill Daley from Chicago ... they lurched from crisis to crisis.

  Joe had to do the hearings. Bork was still at the witness table. The cameras were rolling. The nation was watching. Biden extended the lunch break so he could call the dean of Syracuse Law, make sure he gave the records to Osgood.

  The hearings were perfect. The national polls were turning against Bork. On the committee, Dennis DeConcini probably would vote against the nomination. God only knew about Heflin, but Joe thought they might get Specter, a Republican. The votes were going to fall into place—unless it turned into Bork ... against Biden, the cheater, the plagiarist. Then it would all be lost. In the afternoon, Joe met with the committee, privately: he offered to resign the chair. But no, they backed him, they knew him: he was doing fine.

  Was he? He searched their eyes—they were for him. When he got back into the chair, Strom Thurmond came at him about the witness list ... and the schedule—when were they going to vote? Strom wanted a date. ... Donilon needed to talk to Joe in the back room: Who was the high school speech teacher? Spell the name? Is he alive? ... Bork was speaking, but the cameras shifted briefly to Joe. He was bent toward old Strom, on his right, with his hand up, asking Thurmond to pause, while his left hand reached toward the glass on the table. He had to take a pill.

  It was late, after the hearings, when Joe got to look at the law school stuff. In fact, he’d asked for the records before, back in May—but he’d stuck them in a drawer at home. Now he tore through the file in earnest. Jesus! Those marks! ... God, there’s his paper ...

  But that wasn’t it ... it had to be someplace—the letter from the dean, when he passed the bar. Here!

  At his desk, Joe read out the letter, to Osgood, to the gurus and staff who were roaming the room. “Listen: ... ‘Mr. Biden is a gentleman of high moral character. His records reflect nothing whatsoever of a derogatory nature, and there is nothing to indicate the slightest question about his integrity, industry or ability. ... Sincerely, Robert W. Miller, Dean.’

  “Let’s give this stuff out,” Joe said.

  “All of it?”

  “Everything—just give it out. Questions, we’ll do a press conference.”

  There was a boil of guru-foam all over the floor.

  “Joe, wait, that’s not how ...”

  “Senator, we ought to write out something ...”

  “After Bork, we ...”

  “Gotta give the press their pound of flesh ...”

  “You admit you plagiarized, but you know, you were young ...”

  At his desk, Joe fell silent. He watched their eyes. And he saw: they didn’t believe him—his guys didn’t believe him.

  They wanted him to admit he cheated. They thought he cheated. They weren’t looking at him when they talked. They looked at each other. Their eyes held fear, calculation.

  “No—we go out there now, we’re gonna get hammered on the news tonight, anyway ...”

  “Thing is, we get on top of this tomorrow ...”

  Tactics ... and they didn’t see this was his honor—why would they see? What the hell did they care?

  Joe’s eyes fell to the file—his letter, that he wrote the dean, when the deal went down.

  November 30, 1965 ...

  It has been my aspiration, for as long as I can remember, to study the law, and now that there is a possibility that this desire will never be fulfilled I am heartsick, but this I could eventually overcome. However, the indelible stain which would mar my reputation would remain with me the rest of my life for being branded a cheat. This I could never overcome. I am aware that, in many instances, ignorance of the law is no excuse. Consequently, if you decide that this is such an instance and that I’ve broken the law, then any course of action on your part is justified. But please, I implore you, don’t take my honor. If your decision is that I may not remain at Syracuse University College of Law, please allow me to resign, but don’t label me a cheat.

  Joe’s eyes lifted to the office, the gurus. They were still talking.

  “... press conference, 9:00 A.M., before the hearing ...”

  “Yeah, we should rehearse it. Q and A ...”

  But they weren’t really talking to him. The one who met his eyes was Jimmy ... and they knew, they were alone.

  Val moved into the house: when the boys came home from the hospital, she was there to take care. Jimmy stayed with Joe. Not to help—not obviously—that was the last thing Joe wanted. Jimmy was just there, four o’clock in the morning, when the last TV movie proved itself a dud. ... If Joe wanted to talk, they talked. Otherwise, silence.

  Joe had enough talk all day. The Senate was half bullshit, posture. Old men, full of wind. Talk, talk, talk. Politeness. Joe didn’t know anymore how he was going to be—he didn’t have the will to dream—
but he sure as hell wasn’t gonna be like them.

  They showed him in a thousand ways they wanted to make him part of their club, but ... what was their club for? That was half the problem: they were trying to be so nice. Teddy Kennedy sent a shrink up to Wilmington, for the boys ... Kennedys knew about loss. Half the guys in the Senate invited Joe ... to this dinner, that trip, their weekend place ... but no, Joe would go home to his sons.

  Oh ... they understood.

  They were so grave, solicitous. No one could talk about Joe without mention of the “terrible circumstance.” The papers seemed to have a line of type that fell out of the machine every time they used Biden’s name: “... whose life was touched by personal tragedy ...”

  Joe Biden (D-Del., T.B.P.T.).

  Joe was so sick of it, he could puke. What did they know? He wanted to make them swallow their words. They’d start on him in committee, commending the young Senator from Delaware for his fine work on the bill ... all the more notable because of the “terrible circumstance”... T.B.P.T. What they’d get from Biden was a snarl: “Thank you very much, but, uh, this befalls a lot of families, and we’re, uh, talking about an issue here, so ...”

  So, fuck you. Shut up and deal.

  They called him “brash,” but he’d always been brash. You don’t go after Cale Boggs and knock him off, at age twenty-nine, without being brash. But this was different ... this had a bitter edge of contempt. Because Biden knew: they were specks, just like him ... all their bullshit did not matter.

  What he liked was saying the unvarnished truth, to make them squirm in their seats. When the Senators were dancing like Siamese virgins around the issue of a raise for themselves, it was Joe who stood up to say: “I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’m worth a helluva lot more’n forty-two thousand.”

  When he stepped up to the podium for a speech to four thousand noisy muldoons of the Philadelphia Democratic City Committee, he got that crowd quiet in a hurry: “I’ve been in thirty-two states, and you’re the worst damn audience anywhere,” Biden said. He started to laugh. “I hope you can get out the vote like you talk, because you sure talk like hell ... you’re all a bunch of bums.”