From Salon.com - titled "Joe Biden's 'Better' Instincts"
By Alex Koppelman
Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2008 11:27 EDT
The book on Joe Biden is that he is a solid, working-class guy who occasionally get himself into trouble by running his mouth. I think these two biographical features are related. Let me explain.
Biden stuttered as a child, something many people (myself included) didn't know until Barack Obama picked Biden as his running mate. It's easy to dismiss Biden's chattiness as an obvious compensation mechanism: The man speaks boldly and as often as possible because the boy could not -- or at least could not without suffering embarrassment.
But I wonder if Biden's running mouth problems are actually more closely related to the formative effects of his rather modest upbringing, and his current status as second behind only Wisconsin's Russ Feingold as the least wealthy senator in a chamber brimming with multimillionaires. The reason I speculate on this -- and this is a somewhat painful admission on my part -- is that I often exhibit the same pathology.
My dad drove a truck for a living, my mom was a waitress. I grew up, literally, on the other side of the tracks of an otherwise affluent, suburban Albany town. (The trains, which passed within 50 yards of my bedroom, shook my Delmar home at the intersection of Hudson Avenue and North Street.) Don't misunderstand: We weren't poor and I never missed a meal. But growing up in a poor urban or rural neighborhood is, in some ways, a psychological experience different from growing up as the son of blue-collar, non-college-educated parents in an affluent suburban town chock full of third-generation college kids whose parents have Volvos with ski racks and for whom "summer" is a verb, not a season. In my high school homeroom of just 30 students we had at least one kid go to Hamilton College, Princeton, Providence, Tufts, and St. Michael's, among others. I was the first generation to go to college, and I attended SUNY.
Similar pecking orders prevail in Washington. This is especially true in the chattering classes filled with prep school and Ivy League types, which is why I keep a small, blue-collar chip on my shoulder at all times: It motivates me to try harder when some "senior editor" just three years out of Harvard turns down some Op-Ed I submitted. (I often wonder: What does a "junior editor" look like?) In Washington cocktail party circuits I, too, abhor silence, and often rush to fill it by saying something, often trying to impress listeners by promoting my ideas or myself. I'm not proud of this, mind you. But it is what it is because I am who I am.
In Biden I see the same need to fill that vacuum of silence by pleasing, by trying to show he's an honest guy and worthy of his betters. That urge sometimes gets the better of him, which is perhaps why Biden refused to defend some recent Obama attack ads -- especially when he knew subconsciously that he would earn a short-term media plaudit for defending his buddy "John" (McCain) while the cameras were rolling. (The campaign later issued a statement in which Biden walks back his earlier comments.)
This tendency of his may appear to be mere courtesy, or a nod to a long-standing friendship between two senators who have served together far longer than Biden has with Barack Obama. But I suspect there is something deeper at work here. And I know, because I always feel my upbringing bearing down on my shoulders when I'm in public. Of course, all I have at stake is my reputation. At stake in Biden's public conduct is nothing short of what will be remembered as one of the more pivotal elections in American history.
So, Regular Joe, some advice: Even though he's third-generation Annapolis and owns seven houses and more than a dozen cars, John McCain is not your better -- and there's no need whatsoever to defend him or his honor, especially given the deceitful and often quite repellent way McCain has conducted his own campaign. (Sometimes the "betters" don't act that way, do they?) You don't owe McCain any benefit of the doubt, or the media any greater level of transparency than McCain has displayed. You owe your running mate, your party and your country far more.
So concede nothing. You'll be the better man for it.
Update: There you go, Joe...this is more like it.
Interesting analysis. As someone with a somewhat similar family history, I must admit, this article re-ignighted insecurities that grew of my own humble background.
I came to Canada over 40 years ago. Not my decision - I was only 2. It was my father who packed up our belongings and moved us across the ocean to a land of opportunity he only knew through second-hand stories.
We came from a communist country - one in which my father was a political prisoner for 7 years. I think his decision to come to Canada was partly to seek a better life for his family but I am sure it was also to bury those stubborn demons brought on by the hopelessness and abuse of prison life.
So came my father, a beaten 42 year old man, with $50 in his pocket, a young wife and two babies to support. That responsibility alone would have scared anyone but he was further burdened with language constraints and a lack of decent employment prospects. His first paying job was at the hand of a sympathetic farmer who, after seeing his small children, offered him work picking grapes at an hourly rate slightly better than that he'd paid other immigrants. That put food in our mouths but not much of a roof over our heads - so he worked hard to build his english skills, finally gaining enough mastery of the language to land a good paying job at a steel mill.
We moved into a simple, small semi-detached home in a rough neighbourhood - but we had a backyard, a school nearby and wanted for nothing save an easy bake oven with chocolate cookie mix - I still dream about it!! Those were simple times wrought with the simple struggles that limited finances bring. And, because it was 1968, it was also a period brewing with political conflicts and hostilities. My father endured the harsh criticism of locals who thought immigrants were taking away their God-given right to a job and free healthcare. We were viewed as a tax burden, even as my father worked 14 hour days to become an established Canadian consumer.
I grew up enduring much of the same criticism in school - from my friends to some degree but mostly it was their parents who reminded me I was sitting at a desk that my forefathers had not earned.
I am not ashamed of my humble beginnings. The struggles my father endured today make me very proud of him. I admire his strength of character and his ability to adjust to a new world. I am not sure if most Canadians, with entitlement on their side, could have endured what he did.
And yet, he has consistently maintained a humbleness that is bourne of such struggle. I used to think it was because he never forgot those early hardships but as I grew older, I began to wonder if that humbleness was really an inferiority complex - one which grew out of the hostility felt from Canada's white, naturalized citizens.
With all the controversy that surrounded new immigrants, he was almost apologetic for what he had earned - as if he didn't really deserve his job, his income, his house, his comforts. I cannot recall ever seeing my father relax. He never took up a recreational sport, didn't drink, didn't socialize much - all despite his homeland's (and his many brothers) renowned taste for fun and frolick. I think all that guilt just wouldn't let him to sit back and take in the fruits of his labour.
It upset me to watch his indebtedness manifest itself in daily routine - not just because I thought he deserved better but because it reminded me of who I was, of who I AM. I too maintain an almost maniacal sense of obligation to my job and to the individuals who afford me that right - I work countless hours to the detriment of my health and family. I accept a pay status lower than my male collegues even though, putting humbleness aside for a moment, I feel I have done more. I accept all this because I cannot rid myself of the sense of obligation I inherited from my father. Deep down, I too wonder if I deserve all that I have earned.
And here is Joe Biden, so much more accomplished than I, with the very same vulnerable spirit, with the very same sense of obligation and duty. I have to remind myself of who I am watching. He is after all, THE Joe Biden!!! More than any of the candidates in this election, he deserves to be here. His intellect, his leadership, his values - they combine to create the man America needs right now. And to think he cannot make the front page because he harbours the same complexities I do - well that wills me enough to say stop! Because if he can stop then maybe there's hope for me. If he can rise above his own inadequacies - small town, small income, small house, small world - then maybe, just maybe, I can too.
