What he liked was the car phone on the long drive: Wilmington to Washington, and back, two hours, each way, every day. He’d call the boys three times each way. “Beau-y, what’re you doin’ now? ...”
What he liked, was ... well, there wasn’t much.
66
That Is the Process
IT WAS BETTER AFTER the press conference—not that Joe knocked it out of the park, but he had his say. He was, by turns, humbly apologetic, then defiant. It reflected pretty well where he stood.
He’d meant to be penitent. He had to bow to the press ... which he did in his opening statement:
“Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been dumb. I did something very stupid, twenty-three years ago ...”
But then he asked for questions. And as much as he tried ... as much as he knew, in his head ... well, he couldn’t stop that hot juice rising in his craw. They wanted him to say he was a cheat?
Fuck them.
What did they know about him? ... Or care?
Someone had the gall to ask how he could represent himself as the leader of the baby-boom generation, when he hadn’t even, you know ... marched against the war?
Where the hell did they get off, questioning his life? He answered for fifteen minutes straight, almost without a breath, with his voice rising, his chin jutting out in sudden jerks, like his collar was tight.
“... And look, I was twenty-nine when I ran for the Senate, folks. Other people were marching, carrying banners. ... I am not culturally one of those guys who likes to—I don’t fit very well, with—I’m not a joiner. I was, I was out of synch with—by the time the war movement was at its peak, when I was at Syracuse—I was married. I was in law school. I wore sport coats. I was not part of that. I’m serious! What you all don’t seem to understand is—some of you, I think you understand, and I don’t think ... well, I won’t characterize it—but, you know, there was a four-year period, folks, there’s uh, uhh ... light-years back, when I was on a college campus—those of you who go back with me, 1961–65—Vietnam was like Nicaragua is now. We all said, ‘That’s kind of stupid, but it’s gonna end.’ Well, you don’t see many people marching on campuses. Go up to my son’s campus in Philadelphia, or go down south, or go out west, it’s nothing like the antiwar movement. That’s about where Vietnam was in 1963, ’64, and ’65. So, I find, you all know better than: ‘Well, where were YOU, Senator Biden, at the time?’ You know, I think it’s bizarre. I think it’s bizarre! And THEN ... when the movement did catch up, I was a twenty-three-year-old guy, married. And look: you’re looking at a middle-class guy. I am who I am. I’m not big on flak jackets and tie-dye shirts, and, you know, that’s not me. I’m serious! But that’s the period. But I want to get this straight, man. Because I keep gettin’ asked this all the time, and I’m not gonna get this many of you in a room again until I’m inaugurated, so ...”
(At that point his staff burst into applause. But Joe wasn’t done.)
“... The second thing is, when I got finished ... when I got finished—law school—I came back, I ... the most important thing to me, in my life, is my family. And I got back, and I was gonna have a baby. Flat out. That’s what was important to ME. And I was gonna take the bar exam—which was a bear—you know. I mean, I hated law school. I really did. But by the way, go out and ask anybody in Delaware whether you think I was not a good lawyer, and ask any client I represented whether they think they didn’t get their money’s worth. And ask anybody in Delaware that ever watched me try a case, and tell me that I wasn’t a good trial lawyer. Go find anybody! I was a good lawyer. I am a good lawyer. And if you want to find out more about that, come down at ten o’clock, down at the hearing. So, you know, folks, I don’t understand this. Now, how many other people twenty-nine years old did something about the war? I’m the guy who asked the Foreign Relations Committee—when Gerald Ford said he had a plan to end it—I remember, and some of you will remember, I looked at, at, uhm, Senator Case ... so I asked: ‘Why don’t we ask to go see the President, and ask him what the plan IS?’ ... And they said, ‘Well, no one ever does that.’ And I said, ‘Well why not?’ And I remember, Jack Javits standing there, and saying, ‘Well, it’s not a bad idea. Let me call Henry.’ And they called Henry Kissinger, and we all went down and, I think, if not the first time, but one of the few times in history that the entire Foreign Relations Committee went down and sat with the President and with the Secretary of State, and everybody played pattycake. Everybody went down and said, ‘Yes, Mr. President.’ ‘No, Mr. President.’ They were very polite. And I was young. I was thirty, I guess, then. And I’ll never forget ... you ask some of my colleagues, who were there. I said—and I remember being scared to death, saying it—I said: ‘Begging the President’s pardon, Mr. President. But if the President were the Senator from Delaware, I expect the President would expect me to ask the President this question ...’ I was a, fool. I mean, I was so nervous, asking the question. But I said: ‘Mr. President ... WHAT is the PLAN? ... With all due respect, I’ve heard this all my career. ... What ... is the plan? I did more in that meeting than a lot of people did that marched. So I don’t take a backseat to the notion that, somehow, I did not go on the line. Other people marched. I ran for office. Got elected to the United States Senate at twenty-nine, and came down here and was one of those votes that helped stop the war. And I’m proud of it.”
Well, damn right, he felt better!
Still, all the Friday headlines said:
BIDEN ADMITS PLAGIARISM
They didn’t have room to deal with his life.
That’s what Jill kept trying to tell him ... he called her from Washington, night before the press conference, and she said, it wasn’t about his life. It was politics. Life was something else.
Joe couldn’t separate the two. But it did him good to hear it. She asked him, was there anything he wanted her to do?
“Just call me at five to nine. I just want to hear your voice, last thing before I go in there.”
Now, when it was over, he only wanted to be home. What did these Washington bastards know about home?
Friday afternoon. Judge Bork was still the witness. Everybody wanted to wrap this thing up ... but Biden wanted one more colloquy, and Thurmond wanted time, and Specter, DeConcini, Humphrey, Simpson ... there was no way out—they’d have to come back Saturday.
Biden, Thurmond, with the staff and Bork’s handlers, worked out the schedule: ten-thirty Saturday morning ... then they’d finish, for sure. But ten minutes later, Biden interrupted to ask Judge Bork: “Would you mind if we started at twelve? That make a difference to you? ...”
See, Joe had promised his son Hunter: Saturday morning—the Archmere game.
The royalty of Archmere doesn’t sit in the grandstand at the fifty-yard line. Royals stand on the grassy rise that overlooks the field, as Father Diny used to do when he’d show up to halt practice. Justin Diny, retired headmaster, was there for the Christiana game, standing ramrod straight in a ratty civilian jacket and dark corduroy cap. The cold made the veins show through the skin over Diny’s strong nose and brow.
It was a mortification to Joe that Father Diny had got involved in this mess. When The Philadelphia Inquirer meant to prove that Joe hadn’t really been the graduation speaker, it was Diny who raked up his yearbooks, his memory. No, Diny had to say, Joey Biden was not the graduation speaker, but as president of the senior class (Father Diny had not let Biden run for student council president—too many demerits—Joe was crushed), Biden did welcome his classmates and their parents. Surely, that could count as a speech.
On the grass, above the field, three generations of Bidens clumped together in the chill. Mom-Mom was in front, with Jill next to her. Ashley played nearby. Brother Frankie was up in the spotters’ booth, playing at assistant coach. Janine, his wife, was with the other Bidens, watching to see if Hunter, number 27, halfback/cornerback, would get into the game.
Joe was standing in a stiff little raincoat, talking to Father Diny. Joe
started to tell about the letter he’d written the day before to the people at Archmere. He wanted them to know he hadn’t forgotten all they’d taught him, the sense of honor, responsibility.
Father Diny interrupted to tell Joe a story about the World War II pilot with this slogan on his plane: Non illegitimi carborundum.
Biden looked at him quizzically ... he didn’t remember much Latin.
“Loosely translated,” Father Diny continued, “it means: Don’t let the bastards get you down.”
Archmere was up by a couple of touchdowns at the half, a shutout, and the crowd was in a good mood as the band marched onto the field. Hunt still hadn’t played, but he probably would if the score held. Joe moved through the crowd on the grassy rise.
“Hey, Joe!”
“You’ll get ’em, Joe. Hang in there!”
His gait grew easier as he saw they didn’t believe the stuff, as they told him, one after another, “This’ll blow over ... a couple of weeks, you’ll laugh about it.”
Joe said: “You’re nice to say so ... thanks ... I hope so.” But to the teachers, he meant to say more.
“No, listen,” he told Coach Philibin. “You know, I wrote you a letter, a long one, to everybody here. Because I want you to know I didn’t cheat ... I mean, I didn’t forget what you taught me ...”
Vince Philibin was shaking his head—he didn’t need to hear it. But Joe wouldn’t stop: “No, you taught me a lot, the honor ... I just want you to know ...”
Joe moved on to his football coach, then his history teacher: “You did really teach me. Shoulda learned more, but really, you did. ... Amazing, really, you know, the day after the bomb drops, I’m sitting there composing ... I mean, what I wanted to do was let the people at Archmere know I didn’t, uh, I wasn’t like that ...”
Tommy Lewis showed up in the second half. The plane was waiting, the Bork hearings were waiting. But Tommy knew enough not to push.
Hunt got into the game in the fourth quarter, at 24-0. Playing halfback, he got the ball on a sweep. Joe cut off talking in mid-sentence, jumped forward, his coat billowing behind him.
“Turn it up. Turn it! All RIGHHT!”
Hunt got eight yards. But Archmere had to kick. Later, at cornerback, Hunt was burned, and the Christiana receiver took it down near the goal line. “BIDEN. DIG IN, BIDEN!” Joey screamed as the boys bulked up in a goal-line defense. Christiana ran at the line and got nothing. They ran to Hunt’s side and the linebackers knocked it down for a loss. They burrowed off tackle and got the spot at the one. Fourth down, fourth quarter, shutout at stake. Christiana snapped the ball, surged forward. Hunt piled into the line. Short! They came up short! Archmere took over on downs at the one!
“Good game,” Joe said, as he caught up to Tommy at the car. “Hunt did okay. One good run. Finally got some playing time ...” They were heading out the gates to Manor Road. Joe looked for the gash he made in the concrete pillar with the bumper of his new red Chevy roadster, twenty-seven years before.
“See?” he said. “Still there.”
On the hill heading toward the highway, he said: “I used to live over there. When I first came back to town ... beautiful place.”
“And then, just a few blocks over that way,” Tommy said.
“God, that was a great place.”
They’d been driving these streets for almost thirty years. Back and forth to this same little airport for fifteen years, as a Senator. Ted Kaufman was waiting at the plane, like always. ... Joe was almost jovial as he strapped himself into the four-seater.
“See,” Joe said, as the engines started. “This is home ... my staff just can’t understand that. This is home. Whether I get to be President or not. Or after I’m President, I’ve got to live here. This is my place ...”
Ted was nodding. He lived in Wilmington, too. He’d been with Biden fifteen years. Those two didn’t really talk—it was more like Ted just helped out with Joe’s monologue.
“You know ...” This was Joe. “It wasn’t easy coming back here, after all this. I mean, it was a lot harder than doing the hearings. The hearings were Washington. It was almost easy. I mean, everybody in Washington is so, uh, jaded already. They don’t really ...”
Ted said: “I think they almost liked you better for it ...”
Joe said: “Yeah, I know ... this all started in the first term. When I was always going home, instead of ... you know. That’s when people started saying that Biden ...”
“I mean, here’s this guy who goes home every night ... to his family ...” Ted’s voice became a prissy whine. “Goody-two-shoes. Doesn’t drink ...”
“Yeah, that’s what this Jeffrey Birnbaum from The Wall Street Journal can’t believe. He’s making an absolute inquisition now, about whether I ever took a drink. Ever. ... I did once. My college roommate’s wedding ...” Joey trailed off and looked out the window at the land below.
“Now, is that going to be some big ... I sound like I’m complaining ... that’s the thing. You can’t sound like you’re complaining, or you’re being defensive. That’s the thing, at the press conference, I wanted to tell them ...”
And Joe was back into it. He ducked for his briefcase and pulled out the law school file once again. “Look, here’s the footnote—see it? ... See what I mean? It wasn’t cheating.” He was searching the eyes of his own friends to make sure they believed.
“But, you know, I deserve it. This is what I get for being lazy, for not doing my work till the last day, knowing I could get by ...”
Joe sat back with a sigh. “So they write ‘Biden admits plagiarism.’ So ... that’s all right.”
It wasn’t all right.
“But I’ll tell you,” he said, with new toughness in his voice, as the plane dipped toward Washington. “My learning curve on this thing is moving.”
A woman from the office was waiting with a car outside the private terminal. “How are you, Senator?”
“I’m all right,” Joe said firmly. “All right. Really.”
Joe was late for the hearings ... didn’t matter. This was just the loose ends. No one was watching, Saturday afternoon, with baseball and football on TV.
Biden had his closing planned, another stirring evocation of man’s fundamental rights ... but when he closed that afternoon, he talked instead straight to Bork. This was a different tone of voice than he’d had four days before. This was not for the cameras.
“You know, Judge ... it is a lot harder on one’s family than it is on the principal, when a member of the family is undergoing any test.
“You have been undergoing a test, but that is part of the process, as you well know, Judge. No judge, no nominee, is entitled to the spot. ... It is not a presumption automatically made, any more than it is a presumption when one of us stands for election ... that we should be elected.”
In the chair at the center of the table, in the almost empty hearing room, Biden looked older than he had four days ago. There was almost a shrug in his voice.
“That,” he told Bork, “is the process.”
By that time, smooth Howard Fineman had phoned Biden’s committee staff to ask about the comments Joe made in New Hampshire, a few months ago. Newsweek had a tape, from C-Span. ... That stuff about his IQ, and his scholarships, how he graduated with three degrees, at the top of his class ...
By that time, what could the staff say?
What could Joe say?
That he got pissed off? It was late? His head hurt? He only meant to shut the guy up?
No, he’d have to say: he lied.
That was the process.
Sunday, Joe was home, but there must have been a hundred press calls (he’d never worried about giving out his number). Newsweek wouldn’t hit the stands till the next day, but half the world seemed to know about the piece (Newsweek fed the story to the wires, to assure the magazine got proper credit).
Thing about the calls—they didn’t want explanations. There’s a difference, Joe figured, when they know what they want
to write. What they wanted was a comment—to show they’d called; a no-comment was just as good. He’d explain one thing, they’d bring up another. Jill couldn’t stand it. She said: “There’s no way to answer ...”
For Joe, the calls were a blur—accusations, from voices he knew. People he knew ... or thought he knew. The moment he would always remember—when the hopeless absurdity sank in—was one call: he was trying to explain that he did change in law school, he did buckle down, he could argue a case ... yes, he did win the moot court competition ... really! Honest!
And Val, bless her heart, came rushing to him on the phone with a frame she’d taken off the wall—his moot court certificate. He’d forgotten it was on the wall. She ran ... with this stupid framed piece of fluff, like water for a man in the desert. She carried it in both hands, running!
What was awful was how happy they were ... triumphant! His moot court certificate!
67
Biden’s Waterloo?
HOW COULD HE STOP IT? His campaign was hemorrhaging. Ridley was near emotional collapse. The gurus were clueless. Joe sent Val up to sniff the wind in New Hampshire, whence she fired back a telegram: THE PEOPLE ARE WITH YOU. VICTORY IS YOURS.
But that was just Val, being a Biden. They both knew that.
No less a savant that R. W. Apple, in The New York Times, was beating the tribal drums under the headline: BIDEN’S WATERLOO?
(And who was Apple’s featured Washington wise guy, helping to drop the dime on Joe? “What’s clearly revealed here is that his intellectual habits are lazy, undisciplined and sloppy,” said Apple’s “campaign expert,” the pilgarlic-pollster-pundit-columnist-TV-guest-part-time-Biden-guru-who-gave -Joe-the-Kinnock-tape-in-the-first-place, William Schneider. “That’s a major weakness, and it will seriously damage him.”)
Worse, the papers were starting to speculate on whether Biden’s woes would catapult Bork onto the Court. Joe couldn’t let that happen. That would inflict his failure on the country, probably for twenty years.
What It Takes Page 95
