Mr. Biden has never claimed that his son died in combat, but he has often spoken of his son’s overseas deployment and the toll it took on his family. Mr. Biden’s supporters say that military families are entitled to their grief, but that the president is also entitled to his....
The general thinking among Mr. Biden’s supporters is that he is a welcome change from President Donald J. Trump, who was almost always publicly unable to express empathy. They believe Mr. Biden is the right president for this moment in history, one so far marked by the unthinkable loss....
Biden needs to show people that he's focused on the problems that beset us now and that he can do something to help us. To stand there offering up himself as an example of a person who has suffered doesn't send a message of focus and competence. It's a message that can be read as Hey, I've got problems of my own. Faced with parents of marines who'd just been killed, he said, essentially, my son died too.
His son died 6 years ago. You might be tolerant of an old man who came up to you at your child's funeral and wanted you to know how much he still hurts from the death of his child 6 years ago. It might be difficult, but you'd probably think something like, that poor old guy. But this poor old guy is President of the United States. He asked to be President of the United States, and by some strange twists of fate, he got what he said he wanted. And now everyone's problems are his. He needs to act like someone who can handle all that. If he's swallowed up in grief over his lost son — if he's "haunted," as the NYT headline has it — perhaps he should resign.
It is possible — though it's awkward to say this — that he's not as absorbed in grief as he acts. He may be doing the theater of empathy. It's worked for him to a certain extent. Some people like to see a big display of empathy in politics. Others — a dead marine's father, McGurn, etc. — are telling Biden he's going too far. If it's theater, he can rein it it. Touch up those speeches. Get back to Obama-level empathy, but stress competence and mental clarity.
But it's no wonder he's lapsed into the misconception that "Beau" is a magic word. The press has propped him up so much — including with this "Invoking Beau" article. You know, to "invoke" means "To call on (God, a deity, etc.) in prayer or as a witness" or "To summon (a spirit) by charms or incantation; to conjure; also figurative" or "To call upon, or call to (a person) to come or to do something."
How is Biden "invoking" Beau?
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I will be very interested to see how the Usual Althouse Suspect who vehemently defends all democraticals in all Stolen Valor scenarios decides to proceed in this case.
I think we already know but the validation should be entertaining.
Irish sentimentality. You can see it in Edwin O'Connor's The Last Hurrah. Old politician Frank Skeffington grieves about his son, a 20s Hunter Biden, who is only interested in jazz and the Charleston and not in carrying on the family tradition. I remember the old Irish pol nicknamed "Old Syrup" in -- I think it was Taylor Caldwell's less culturally respectable The Captains and the Kings. Fictional avatars of Kennedy grandfather "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald. Biden is only half-Irish, but take away the Irish sentimentality and what's left? People knock self-pity but without it some people might not have any emotions at all or only destructive ones.
Someone should ask Biden if he blames Obama for Beau’s death.
Many of the family members of the 13 marines killed blame Biden.
They do so because Operation Withdrawal was a shitshow.
Trump had a lot of trouble lying that Biden has never had.
Biden lost another child in addition to Beau - an infant daughter.
It is interesting to notice which child he speaks of depending on what the issue is.
No man or woman should lose a child, it is simply devastating. That said, there is a time and place for those strong emotions and when speaking to parents of murdered children, murders that occurred during your watch, demonstrates what an appalling, self-absorbed politician Biden truly is and always has been. Not so much #me too as #me first.
He invokes the spirit of Beau, that is, the spirit of losing a child, as a shield against those in the world who would come after him. It's that simple. Another aspect of Joe is that Joe is always about Joe. People called Trump narcissistic, and that's putting it mildly. But Trump's narcissism, like everything Trump, is exaggerated and in your face. He lives in a world of superlatives. It is his norm and he does not use it as a shield, he uses it as his world point of reference. Everything for him starts with how he'd do it, or has done it, or will vow to do it.
Biden has always been about Biden, as a mediocre Senator, as a VP, and now as President. Joe used his office for his and his family's gains. Not that that hasn't been done before- regularly. But not with foreign nationals, not so on the record, and not typically for so much money (with the exception of the Clintons who rewrote the book on graft, along with their then campaign manager, Terry McAuliffe who wants to again run Virginia).
Joe is multi-faulted. It's obvious to all and the more obvious it becomes, the more he leans on his life's past sorrows. Call it using a pity shield. He is a walking disaster, so his pulling out the use of Beau seems to be happening more in the past few years. It could just be an old man showing the one real pain that he cannot get over. But I cynically have to think he uses it like he used everyone else in his career.
One other thing. This trope that Trump could not show empathy is bullshit. While he is an abnormal person in that he reacts differently to things than the norm, he is not cold hearted. And there are dozens and dozens of stories about Trump's interaction with employees, doormen, servers, politicians, world leaders, and US citizens who lost family in the service of the country. So many stories of these people commenting that Trump was real, kind, engaged, and touched them (and not in a Bidenesque way). I read and heard that, unlike the media portrayal, he is a very kind and caring man in person.
The problem with Biden is "competence and mental clarity" just isn't there to even attempt to credibly fake.
I guess if bringing up Hunter is the other choice, Bye-den would be wise to maintain his focus on Beau.
Joe Biden has had his share of loss and grief.. His first wife died in that car accident. His good son died young, and his wastrel son continues to get wasted. He's had a full load, but there's nothing Lincolnesque about the way he carries the burden. I don't doubt the sincerity of his grief, but there's something manipulative and self serving in the way that he uses it.
Bill Clinton felt your pain. Joe Biden feels his own.
Sometimes when I read Cruel Neutrality (TM) here, I think, “She is so good! Had to really think that through in an innovative way to get to CN.” Not so here, which is not the fault of our hostess. It’s as if she is being asked to return serves that are perfectly positioned and just the right speed for her to really whack them.
I had no problem hearing about Beau the first dozen times. The fact he cannot meet any grieving person without bringing up Beau and insinuating his death is war-related is nearly sociopathic in its inappropriateness. We have all noticed how scripted he is but this is almost tic like in nature, so repetitive and tone-deaf. You can’t even separate this from the Aspergers or compulsive watch-checking he did at the thirteen caskets last week. I heard multiple Gold Star parents say he did after every casket was unloaded. Like an uncontrollable reflex. His weird sickness made them ill in a time of extreme pain and loss. This isn’t normal presidential behavior. This isn’t even normal human behavior. This is not going away. Democrats who refuse to address this 98-pound Donkey in the Room already have blood on their hands. Letting Ron Klein or Susan Rice or Samantha Power run things in his name, hiding behind the husk of Joe is evil. It should be treason. Where’s fake doctor Jill when we need her?
If a man, for his own advantage, can say to a group of black voters that his opponents (two gentlemanly characters constrained by proper deportment) will "put y'all back in chains", we are in a new universe of indecent behavior. Joe Biden wouldn't recognize decency or empathy for others if they came up and introduced themselves to him.
The man is an empty clown, who has now added senility to his routine. And he is POTUS. Great.
I've known people like Joe Biden, who have suffered genuine tragedies, but use them as both an escape and a defense mechanism. It is perfectly legitimate to grieve and mourn, and this can take a lifetime. But at some point constantly referring to your losses becomes passive-aggressive, emotional manipulation. In talking to these parents, Joe is not the victim here. Even worse, be is directly responsible for the decisions that led to their losses. Humility and empathy are in order, not self-absorbed narcissism.
One other thing. This trope that Trump could not show empathy is bullshit. While he is an abnormal person in that he reacts differently to things than the norm, he is not cold hearted. And there are dozens and dozens of stories about Trump's interaction with employees, doormen, servers, politicians, world leaders, and US citizens who lost family in the service of the country. So many stories of these people commenting that Trump was real, kind, engaged, and touched them (and not in a Bidenesque way). I read and heard that, unlike the media portrayal, he is a very kind and caring man in person.
True. Trump didn't make a show of his empathy. He didn't use it to get himself elected. Trump, the guy who so many people believed was only in it for himself, could surprise them by showing normal human concern or compassion. Biden, the guy who ran and got votes on the basis of his goodness, decency and compassion, the guy who was forever reaching out to people emotionally, could surprise them with his callousness and hardness. When empathy becomes a manipulative technique or a trick, something one can turn on and off, it coarsens and brutalizes.
Ads that kept telling us that Biden was a good man had the opposite effect on me. Trump's faults were clear to everyone. You knew what you were getting, whether you liked it or not. Biden's team went to so much trouble to make the man into something that he obviously wasn't that one wondered what else they would lie about.
"memories of a son he described as 'me, but without all the downsides.'"
So, i assume that means that Beau+Hunter=Joe ???
The accident that killed his infant daughter was earthquakes by the authorities to have been, regrettably, the result of negligent driving by his then-wife, who drove into the path of an oncoming truck. For years, Biden publicly pushed false accusations that the truck driver was drunk. The trucker's daughter has pleaded with Biden to recant the lie, to no avail. He's not empathetic; he's a monster.
I wonder how Joe Biden lives with himself. People are dying on the Southern border daily. Afghanistan was a shit show. I guess it helps to be not very smart.
Going back in time: Al Gore, 1992 Democratic Convention, accepting the nomination to be VP:
"I don’t know what it’s like to lose a father, but I know what it’s like to lose a sister and almost lose a son. I wish my late sister, Nancy, could be here this evening, but I am grateful beyond words for the blessings my family has shared. Three years ago, my son, Albert, was struck by a car crossing the street after watching a baseball game in Baltimore. He was thrown 30 feet in the air on impact and scraped along another 20 feet on the pavement after he hit the ground. I ran to his side and held him and called his name, but he was limp and still, without breath or pulse. His eyes were open with the empty stare of death, and we prayed, the two of us, there in the gutter, with only my voice.
"His injuries, inside and out, were massive, and for terrible days he lingered between life and death. Tipper and I spent the next thirty days and nights at his bedside. Our family was lifted and healed, in no small measure by the love, compassion and prayers of thousands of people, most of whom we never even knew.
"Albert is plenty brave and strong, and with the support of three wonderful sisters--Karenna, Kristin, and Sarah--and two loving parents who helped him with his exercises every morning and prayed for him every night, he pulled through. And now, thank God, he has fully recovered, and he runs and plays and torments his older sisters like any little boy.
‘A Higher Calling’
"But that experience changed me forever. When you’ve seen your 6-year-old son fighting for his life, you realize that some things matter more than winning, and you lose patience with the lazy assumption of so many in politics that we can always just muddle through. When you’ve seen your reflection in the empty stare of a boy waiting for a second breath of life, you realize that we weren’t put here on Earth to look out for our needs alone; we’re part of something much larger than ourselves.
"His injuries, inside and out, were massive, and for terrible days he lingered between life and death. Tipper and I spent the next thirty days and nights at his bedside. Our family was lifted and healed, in no small measure by the love, compassion and prayers of thousands of people, most of whom we never even knew."
I've always thought this was kind of over the top. How exactly does any of this qualify you to be Veep/Pres? Greater empathy? Greater suffering, so it doesn't shock you when you have to suffer more? The near death of one child prepares you to send people off to war?
Then came 1996. WaPo:
"... in accepting his party's nomination for a second term as vice president, Gore would tell the story of his sister's deathbed struggle with cancer in a speech at the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago. That account remains the most vivid public image the nation has of Nancy, perhaps the only image. His words drew criticism for sounding maudlin, a reaction that upset him, but he had not understood, as Nancy likely would have, that people could be offended by what might seem to be his exploitation of a personal tragedy for political purposes.
"In delivering that speech, Gore might not have intended to reduce his sister's life to that of a convenient prop, an example of a smoker whose early death illustrated the evils of tobacco. Yet that is what happened, partly because of his overdrawn rhetoric, partly because of the politics of the situation."
It's a cruel joke, but I began to worry that Al was going to have to make sure something bad happened to Tipper so he could bring it up in a speech.
My pet peeve: People saying "i lost my child, that's THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN SOMEONE"
or, "No Parent should EVER lose a child"
1st; Seriously, which would be worse?
Being a parent, that loses a child, or; Being a young Child, that loses BOTH parents?
2nd; EVER? EVER? until a hundred years ago... MOST Parents lost a child (at LEAST ONE)
(if you think that losing a child; is THE WORST THING that could happen.. You need to get out more)
Things were going great; until the plague came, and killed nearly EVERYONE i knew,
Then; i was captured, and sold into slavery. I'd hoped that i'd get sent to the Carolinas,
but; i got sent to Brazil... I lived(and slaved) two years before i died)
The demented old man should hang it up. Lining his own pockets, enriching banks and blowing hard is what the scheister Biden has always been best at. I’m of a mind that he ought to be placed in chains and then a jail cell.
Not a fan…
This post prompted me to read the Wikipedia entry for Beau Biden, which includes the following passage that seems relevant today (footnotes omitted):
"[Beau] Biden joined the military in 2003 and attended The JAG School at the University of Virginia as a member of the Delaware Army National Guard. He attained the rank of major in the Judge Advocate General's Corps as part of the 261st Signal Brigade in Smyrna, Delaware.
"Biden's unit was activated to deploy to Iraq on October 3, 2008, and sent to Fort Bliss, Texas, for pre-deployment training, the day after his father participated in the 2008 presidential campaign's only vice presidential debate. His father was on the record as saying, 'I don't want him going. But I tell you what, I don't want my grandson or my granddaughters going back in 15 years, and so how we leave makes a big difference.'"
Mr. Biden is incapable of being president and should stop playing one on TV.
Stop beating up the poor old man who had children who died. He's really a nice guy. And the guy before was terrible. Why he just kept people from being killed in Afghanistan without any empathy at all.
Beau Biden was about 34 years old in 2003 when he and "The Big Guy" worked to get Beau a commission and JAG corps assignment when the War on Terror was in full swing and the Biden's knew that any future electoral prospects could be greatly enhanced by snaring a "check in the block" military assignment.
In shades of Al Gore's Senior's desperate attempt to survive reelection in 1970 (recall Al Gore Jr "enlisting" and landing a cushy and very protected military "combat journalist" (wink wink) assignment under the watchful eyes of our military leadership in Vietnam) which included having the newly enlisted Al Gore Jr appear in campaign commercials while Al Gore Senior threw out lofty homespun bromides...captured on camera for campaign purposes. Spoiler: it didn't work. And so we find the Biden's did the same thing.
Right smack in the middle of the 2008 campaign with LLR Chuck's heroic and beloved savior, obama, and "The Big Guy", whaddya know?!, Beau was given orders deployment orders to Iraq, allowing Biden to be filmed in touching send off scenes with his son Beau.....who would soon take up residence in rear echelon areas prosecuting real soldiers and enforcing impossible Rules of Engagement requirements which got many real soldiers killed.
Naturally, when the very very safe Beau returned home and then died of cancer, "The Big Guy" and his team of democraticals and LLR lackeys certainly knew they could not let that "crisis go to waste".
And Voila!! Beau is a war hero! To be mentioned prominently in all conversations where those who really served in combat and paid the ultimate price necessarily had to be minimized to inflate the personal story of the "hero" who confronted CornPop and who was arrested with Nelson Mandela and whose family story "mirrored" that of....Neil Kinnock!
Remember, Biden was a college football hero too! And got a great scholarship for law school because he was just so smart! So smart that he finished with a dual degree AND at the top of his class!
It's really an astonishing list of lies which is why the democraticals/LLR's have to conjure up hoax lies (like Charlottesville, bleach drinking, collusion, etc) to make their hero look better by comparison.
F Biden and his whole family.
"Many of the family members of the 13 marines killed blame Biden."
They should blame Bush for starting the shit show, and Obama and Trump for continuing it.
Biden can't empathize. He can only offer up what he thinks is some sort of personal equivalence starring himself. Since Beau is his only touchstone in this particular time, he's mentioned him over and over these past two weeks, because he is incapable of or doesn't care to tailor his response to the individual situation.
Is is grief sincere? I doubt it. It's true he lost his wife in a car accident. But then made political hay out of it by repeatedly publicly smearing the other driver. Beau's as much a prop as his first wife. People are only as important to Joe as their usefulness to Joe.
I’ll give leeway for the incontinent blarney and the far too many times Biden buried someone too young, but the emotion ought to be evoke, while Biden is invoking.
Recall that Beau the “golden son” was widely considered at the highest levels of the DNC to be Obama’s preferred heir (deal or no deal for Hillary) before his awful young death. And the Washington media was 100% behind the idea that Beau would succeed Obama; they were warming the chair and hiding the bodies. He wasn’t any Hunter Biden but he had a hell of a lot of political corruption and other baggage that was, understandably, not discussed again.
Feminist circles were audibly anxious about the Hillary or Beau question because they knew the answer would resoundingly be Beau, and the loudest rebound of all would be Obama’s.
Empathy. Man, if you can fake that, you can fake sincerity.
It's especially offensive because Biden bears some personal responsibility for the deaths of those Marines.
Biden has repeatedly suggested that his son's brain cancer was caused by toxic smoke exposure in Iraq. I believe that he believes that he is also a Gold Star parent. He has brought this up and then bitten his tongue in his remarks on Afghanistan in the last few days.
There was a time when the USA was coming to grips with the scourge of drunk driving, and laws were passed, and American society changed, to where driving drunk became no longer acceptable. Joe Biden took advantage of that by lying about how his wife and kid were killed by a drunk driver. It was a full-on fabrication-- he definitely suffered a tragic loss, but there was no alcohol involved. No matter, he made the country think that he had suffered personally from the then-current American tragedy as much as anyone. He pretty much got away with it. His lie was revealed, but he kept winning elections anyway.
The now current American tragedy is what Biden and his henchmen have done in Afghanistan. There is an attempt to make it a collective American tragedy- 20 years of poor decisions and poor execution, but there is no avoiding the fact that Biden has the blood of those 13 poor souls on his hands. His current attempt to bring Beau into this tragedy and say, "Hey, I lost a war hero, too!" is despicable.
He's rubbing salt into the wounds of the heroes' families. But, he knows that the American press will let him get away with it.
I heard earlier this year that Biden is said to believe that Beau's brain cancer was the result of inhaling the fumes from "burn pits" while he was in Iraq. In his doddering state, Biden probably does believe that he is a "gold star father."
Everyone else is like "Why the Hell is he going on about Beau?"
@Kevin
+1
“Faced with parents of marines who'd just been killed, he said, essentially, my son died too.” Biden has always (and only) been about Biden.
This reminds me of the joke about the narcissist who goes on and on about his wonderful self and then turns to his interlocutor and says “But enough about me. What do YOU think of me?”
It’s not clear to me that Biden can still muster the CPU cycles to understand how terribly he is disgracing the office and alienating many millions of Americans.
'Bill Clinton felt your pain.'
If you were cute (or even sometimes not), Bill Clinton felt your ass.
1: Thank you, Prof Althouse. You said most of what I wanted to say
2: The general thinking among Mr. Biden’s supporters is that he is a welcome change from President Donald J. Trump, who was almost always publicly unable to express empathy.
Bull. trump went to funerals for soldiers, and deliveries of the soldiers' dead bodies, and made it about them.
Biden goes, and makes it about himself.
Trump showed Empathy, Biden show narcissism.
3: They believe Mr. Biden is the right president for this moment in history, one so far marked by the unthinkable loss....
You mean, one marked by Biden*'s incredible and inexcusable screwups and evil choices (approving the Russian to Germany Nord Stream pipeline that Trump had blocked is just one of the many Biden* Admin choices that is evil, not merely stupid)
William (11:51am):
His "first wife's death in that car accident" sure looks like a case of subconscious, semi-conscious, or conscious suicide, given that she had found out that the woman she thought was her best friend was sleeping with her husband. It's odd that Jill Biden is treated with any respect at all by respectable people, when we all know she's the kind of sleazy slut that steals her best friend's husband, cheating on her own to do so, and driving the wife to her death via (at best) recklessly careless depressed driving, at worst suicide and homicide (taking a child with her). In a way, Joe and Jill are a perfect match: both total shits.
His good son died young,
Perhaps only by comparison. Perhaps, like Jim Morrison and JFK and Elvis, his timing was good. There was at least a hint of scandal.
"It is possible — though it's awkward to say this — that he's not as absorbed in grief as he acts. He may be doing the theater of empathy."
It's possible! It's awkward! Maybe!
Jeez. The guy has been lying about every single thing in his life, from his education to his wife's death, from his role in the civil rights movement to his visit to a synagogue to his travels on Amtrak: nothing in the guy's history, nothing in his self-presentation, is authentic and truthful in any way. This is the guy who plagiarized his campaign autobiography. And now it's "possible" he's doing theater? And calling it theater is giving him credit: in fact, he does not even bother to show empathy. Bringing up Beau is an FU.
He is a nasty, self-serving SOB, and always has been. But as even Althouse's own "awkward" phrasing illustrates--and this is not a criticism of Althouse, who is in effect calling BS here--he has been getting away with it for decades.
William said...
Joe Biden has had his share of loss and grief.. His first wife died in that car accident. His good son died young, and his wastrel son continues to get wasted.
.. His first wife died driving drunk, in the middle of the day; with children in the car. His loser son died having NEVER accomplished ANYTHING other than having his name, and his BIGGER LOSER wastrel son continues to get wasted.
fify!
Seriously, Name ONE THING that his "good son" Beau, Ever did?
I'll wait....
Got anything yet? (any thing, at all?)
Don't forget, he married his babysitter; that was the teenaged cocktail waitress wife, of one of his BIGGEST financial backers (Remember that? Jill? Remember sitting in Joe's kitchen, while your husband wrote out checks? Surely, you've GOT to remember tending the kiddies?)
At least Hunter made a name for himself! (okay, so the name was: Vice President's Bagman, but still)
Biden's constant invoking of his dead son is grotesque. It is like a get out jail free card that he returns to again and again and again. I don't doubt for second that losing a child is the greatest grief a person can suffer, and I have thankfully never had to feel that kind of grief, but it maudlin and self-serving to mention it every single week. It was particularly grotesque to do so at that service with the dead soldiers because Biden bears a great deal of the responsibility for their deaths- much more than would normally be the case. Every person on the planet who isn't a sociopath understands grief, and most of us know when it is and is not appropriate to speak of our own, but Biden apparently isn't wired that way, and perhaps never was.
When I hear people do this - respond to another person's grief or misfortune by talking about their own - I see it as a way of trying to appear empathetic without really having any empathy. On the surface, it looks like they understand your pain, but they don't. They only recognize their own.
IIRC Beau Biden died of cancer, was a military lawyer, and never saw combat. Contrast that with the 13 Marines who died in a war zone actively performing their assigned duties. Sorry for Joe's loss, but c'mon man!
"It is interesting to notice which child he speaks of depending on what the issue is."
I think it's more like the making of the "Our Gang" films where right before the camera rolled they'd tell the little kid actor that his puppy died in order to get the kid to cry realistically on camera. I suspect something similar with Biden. Moments before he takes the stage they tell him his infant daughter just died. Or Beau, depending on the audience.
Joe Biden is a rapist. He has abused children on National television/events. No parent would leave their kid alone with him. He helped the Taliban gather in millions of women to be raped repeatedly.
Joe Biden has taken billions in bribes from our enemies.
Joe Biden just gave the Taliban Billions of dollars worth of military equipment. Looking at how this unfolded it was undeniably on purpose. Some of that equipment has already been seen in Iran and China. Seeing as he has undeniably taken money from both those countries it was a clear payoff.
If Joe Biden actually didn't want the Taliban to get that equipment he could have easily kept them from getting it.
Joe Biden is shutting down domestic production of oil and natural gas and he is openly begging OPEC and Russia to produce more oil. What in the living fuck is that about?
There is no defending this.
Joe Biden is evil and anyone that supports him is a traitor.
It appears that Biden is unable to grasp the essential difference between his son's death and the recent deaths of the 13 service members killed in Kabul.
No one ordered Beau Biden into a situation where he ran a risk of developing brain cancer. Beau's death wasn't the direct result of serving in action the military.
The 13, on the other hand, were sent into harm's way on orders that originated from the Commander in Chief. They were ordered to staff a miserably planned, inadequately staffed mission, and they died. Those deaths very likely would have been prevented if an intelligent evacuation plan had been implemented.
There is one guy who is ultimately and directly responsible for the 13 deaths, versus no one responsible for Beau's. For Biden to conflate his family's loss with the losses of the Gold Star families shows a severe lack of empathy and intellect.
I don't know about the "Jill was Joe's teenaged babysitter" story. "Factcheckers" dispute it, but they are often wrong and in need of fact checking themselves. However it was back then, though, Jill is definitely Joe's babysitter now.
Althouse writes, "It is possible — though it's awkward to say this — that he's not as absorbed in grief as he acts."
It's awkward because it's not merely possible, it is virtually certain that Biden's histrionics over the demise of his adult son is largely a display, a performance for political effect.
Let us not forget that Joseph Robinette Biden III (imagine pushing that "little birdie" middle name onto a third generation, kinda sick if you ask me) was groomed from childhood to be Joe Junior's successor. The entire purpose of "Beau" Biden's military service was political. It was to help him in his own campaign for Joe Biden's Senate seat against a theoretical Republican rival with combat experience.
I believe the Resident would have secretly rejoiced if his son had received a neat little non-life threatening wound while in Iraq -- no Kerry-style barked shin, but something genuinely cause by an enemy weapon. A bullet graze in the upper left arm would have been ideal, nothing beats a snap of Beau in BDU camo with his arm in a sling, campaign poster gold!
Also, while we have Jill's husband's testimony that Joe and Jill were lovers while she was still married, do we really know that they were lovers while he was still married?
Maybe Joe's first wife was drinking or depressed or suicidal, but do we really know any of that for sure.
"Slut who stole her best friend's husband" reminds me of another recent Senator Joe and his wife. It wasn't exactly like that, but close enough. I won't get into it now, though.
My wife and I are coming up on the second anniversary of our eldest daughter's death. I'm a CPA and when my client a couple of months ago told me his son had died the week before - the circumstances seemed similar to our daughter's: a drug over dose - rightly or wrongly, I told him about my daughter to qualify what I had to say to him next: I could offer no comfort, their grief was theirs to work through at their own pace, and no one, especially me, could know what they were going through. But I was available to listen to whatever they might need to say if that would help them carry this burden. And then I proceeded to do just that. Listen. This was their grief, not mine. (And I certainly didn't look at my watch.)
Biden spins the story of Beau's death so it sounds like he died in battle. Sometimes it seems Biden uses Beau's death as a shield against criticism: don't pick on me, I'm an old man whose son died some years ago. The families report Biden was prickly when they called him on it. Biden may still be grieving - he's been a politician spinning lies for so long, it may be hard for him to even know anymore if his emotions are genuine. But this was the families time and they were there because of the ineptness of the man in the room with him, and there was no room for Beau.
(I recently read a short piece by Dana Perino about George W meeting with Gold Star parents - he was quiet as they ripped into him. He later told Perino the parents really let him have it. And he said he deserved it. I don't think Biden thinks he deserves these families' wrath.)
IIRC Beau Biden died of cancer, was a military lawyer, and never saw combat.
You forgot, "and was awarded the Bronze Star" so as to appear that he did see combat and acted in a manner that distinguished himself from others that were also there.
Joe never forgets to mention that one.
Biden voted for the wars. He is not off the hook. He ended the war really badly. Deadly badly & he owns it.
Does the buck stop with him or not? as for his yammering on about Beau - yeah as mentioned-> Joe is a narcissist.
When I hear people do this - respond to another person's grief or misfortune by talking about their own - I see it as a way of trying to appear empathetic without really having any empathy.
@Mary Beth, thinking back over my lifetime, it appears that you have given me a key that lets me sort through a numerous experiences that seemed strange at the time. Thank you.
Kevin Williamson put it best:
He is a vicious self-serving political hack, for one thing, one whose ambition leads him from time to time into shocking indecency. You may have heard that Biden lost his wife and daughter in a horrifying drunk-driving wreck, the fault of a monster of a man who irresponsibly “drank his lunch,” as Biden puts it.
Never happened.
Biden’s wife and daughter did, in fact, die in a car wreck. That is true. It is not true that the driver of the other car was drunk, that he had been drinking, or that there was any reason to believe he was drunk or had been drinking — or even that he was at fault. The late Mrs. Biden “drove into the path of [the] tractor-trailer,” the police report says. But Biden, like every other third-rate ward-heeler of his ilk, thinks and speaks only in terms of good guys and bad guys, white hats and black hats — and if something bad happens to good people, then it must be because somebody in a black hat did something nefarious. The driver of that truck went to his grave haunted by Biden’s lies, to the point where his children were forced to beg the vice president to stop defaming their late father. The casual cruelty with which Biden is willing to subordinate the lives of ordinary people to his political ambitions — for the sake of a petty tear-jerker line in one of his occasionally plagiarized stump speeches — is remarkable.
I guess we should be thankful Biden wasn't chowing down on an ice cream cone while trying to comfort the grieving parents. He's truly awful at this job, like Frank Drebin, Police Squad bad.
With a democrat in office again parents of dead soldiers no longer have "absolute moral authority". That's how these things work, don't you know.
Moondawggie said
"The 13, on the other hand, were sent into harm's way on orders that originated from the Commander in Chief. They were ordered to staff a miserably planned, inadequately staffed mission, and they died. Those deaths very likely would have been prevented if an intelligent evacuation plan had been implemented."
Totally agree with all he said. Those soldiers and Marines put themselves in harm's way to defend us. Biden, as Commander-in-Chief should have been thanking them for their son or daughter's voluntary service and sacrifice, not talking about his own son who died at home of cancer. It's lack of empathy not to see that difference. If Hunter ODs, are we going to have to listen to how he knows how anxious families feel while their relatives are deployed because he always worried about Hunter's drug use?
Kevin: "You forgot, "and was awarded the Bronze Star" so as to appear that he did see combat and acted in a manner that distinguished himself from others that were also there."
Correct.
Skippy Tisdale (3:05pm):
"I think it's more like the making of the 'Our Gang' films where right before the camera rolled they'd tell the little kid actor that his puppy died in order to get the kid to cry realistically on camera. I suspect something similar with Biden. Moments before he takes the stage they tell him his infant daughter just died. Or Beau, depending on the audience."
If they need him to look cheerful, relaxed, and jovial, do they tell him Hunter died?
Joe Biden has made it pretty obvious he doesn't give a shit about anyone else in so many ways this is just a moot point.
He is just giving other shitty selfish people an excuse to support him.
Why "Beau" and "Hunter"?
I thought that practicing Catholics named their kids after saints?
I do not know where Biden got a reputation for being a moderate, or for having an affinity for blue collar workers, or for empathy.
I always thought of Biden as a mean, obnoxious blowhard.
This is Joe being Joe: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/12/05/youre-a-damn-liar-joe-biden-blasts-iowa-voter-after-question-about-trump-ukraine-son.html
"I do not know where Biden got a reputation for being a moderate, or for having an affinity for blue collar workers, or for empathy."
Jo's Dad, was blue colar, for a short time. Well, he was
a Wealthy alcoholic, then;
a distitute alcoholic, then;
a used car salesman alcoholic.
So, Jo moderates his drinking (compared to his father (or his sons (or, EITHER of his wives))
He has an affinity for blue collar workers (from when being jealous of them making more $'s than them)
And he has Empathy with little girls; that is, if Empathy means he has feelings for them
Each of us stars in the movie of our own lives. But Joe Biden expects to be the lead in everyone else's movie, too, not just his own. He's only willing to share screen time with Hunter and Dr. Jill.
For about half of my adult life I simply thought of Joe Biden as just another example of “career politician”, which was enough for me to just dismiss him as a non-entity with an ego that was inversely proportional to his importance, sincerity, honesty, and achievements — all of which were slight or non-existent. Thanks to his becoming POTUS by some twists of fate, we can and will see more of him and hear more about him; he no longer blends into the swamp, now he is our chattering and mumbling tour guide through it. Too bad (for him), he coulda been a nothing instead of being exposed as a menace to what is honorable and good about our history and values.. Sometimes it’s better to just "fold ‘em" and walk away.
the Dope from Hope - nice reminder.
Imagine if Romney had lied like that? Or anyone not(D-hack)
If they need him to look cheerful, relaxed, and jovial, do they tell him Hunter died?
----
they tell him sniff worthy child is waiting ?
The late Mrs. Biden “drove into the path of [the] tractor-trailer,” the police report says
----------
makes me wonder if that was suicidal. Was not Biden having affair?
Biden may be gloating and stealing sympathy from audience.
The late Mrs. Biden “drove into the path of [the] tractor-trailer,” the police report says
----------
makes me wonder if that was suicidal. Was not Biden having affair?
Biden may be gloating and stealing sympathy from audience.
for those who have read Atlas Shrugged - recall conversation between Dagny and James after Cheryl commits suicide
The late Mrs. Biden “drove into the path of [the] tractor-trailer,” the police report says
----------
makes me wonder if that was suicidal. Was not Biden having affair?
Biden may be gloating and stealing sympathy from audience.
for those who have read Atlas Shrugged - recall conversation between Dagny and James after Cheryl commits suicide
Like Pete, I am coming up on the second anniversary of my older daughter's death from (essentially) a drug overdose (on September 11th). It is a tragedy and a sadness that I would wish on no one.
And that it is a pet peeve of Gilbar's (prior to my daughter's death, I have, on many occasions, said that nothing is worse than having to bury your child), appears to me that the way we grieve over personal tragedies is up to us individually and not subject to reducing it to a bitchy complaint.
THEOLDMAN
Joe Biden will always be a hero to me.
Those years in 'nam - fighting the commies. Then marching with MLK for civil rights. And lets not forget the years spend in poverty, as a young defense attorney helping the poor.
Then the years in DC as a poor public servant. A lowly Senator, commuting each day from Delaware, his home state. Eeking out a meager living. Thank God, he saved his pennies and ended up with $100 million, on a salary of $200,000 or less.
A devote Catholic with 3 sons/daughters married to Jews, and a love for abortion. A solid uncorruptable man, with a son who loves International business and helping foreingers. A stoic family man, who never reveled his private life or uses personal tragedy for political gain.
Thank God, Cindy McCain, George Bush, Mitt Romney and the Democratic party recognized his greatness and made him leader of the Free world.
Couple of notes: Bronze Stars can be awarded for distinguished service. Our company once passed in review for the award to a junior sergeant who was pianist in the post band. Or, if it's combat-related, the V (for valor) device is awarded.
I've dealt with bereaved families, notification and survivors assistance, including my own. My father had a friend who was killed late in the Pacific war. The guy's mother thought if we'd had the bomb sooner, her son would have survived. Pretty much a mathematical certainty, giving the timing. But the poor woman was so distraught that she was convinced the Jews delayed the bomb. I wrote a letter to somebody who was marginally involved in the screw up which killed my brother. The response was far kinder than I deserved. People know.
After D-Day, George Marshall received angry letters from the families of some guys killed there. It was his fault. They should have had more training.
So people rip into those associated with, even if not responsible for, a loved one's death. Give them all the slack in the world but they're not authorities.
OTOH, the constant referral to Beau is different.
Richard Aubrey said: "So people rip into those associated with, even if not responsible for, a loved one's death. Give them all the slack in the world"
Richard, Biden made a decision as commander in Chief that limited the military from executing an intelligent, forceful, planned withdrawal. Biden could have easily beefed up security at Bagram, and then sent in enough forces to safely convoy the embassy staff, US citizens, and loyal Afghans out of Kabul and safely into Bagram onto flights home. Even the greenest 2nd Lieut. understands this basic concept of how to successfully withdraw from the field.
Biden decided to do it on the cheap, just like Sec Def Les Aspin denying tanks to the Black Hawk Down troopers in Somalia, with a similar, adverse outcome. Unlike the Biden and Clinton administrations, George Marshall never denied giving available resources to his troops. To compare Marshall's decisions with those of Biden's and Clinton's lackeys is an insult.
Empathy is a crock. It's a rather new word in English; originally it meant just what it did in Attic Greek, passionate feeling -- passionate love, passion hate, passionate lust, passionate disgust, whatever. Very recently the word has become a synonym of sympathy, a word comfortably part of common English since at least the Tudor period, though empathy is deemed stronger more intimate. Why? I suspect parapsychology and bad science fiction have much to do with it. Certain writers of pulp sci-fi together with the followers of various New Age cults promoted the existence of persons called empaths, beings, human or alien, who possess psychics powers that enable them to experience the emotions of others. One should point out here that the concept of actually experiencing the sensations of another person implies a gamut of metaphysical absurdities that ought to embarrass any honest person who thoughtlessly uses empathy rather than sympathy.
Sympathy is a far superior word. Its Greek roots mean fellow feeling, and it was often used by ancient philosophers and politicians to describe the ideal state of mind of the citizen -- an upright citizen has fellow feelings with and for his neighbors, he grieves when they grieve, he rejoices in their good fortune, he holds them as comrades rather than utter strangers. In short, sympathy is civic loyalty. That's a secondary meaning now. Since classical times sympathy has come to mean chiefly compassion, but with the added color of understanding of the emotional response of others based on observation and the memory of similar experience, as in Barked your knee, did you? I've done that and it really smarts. What can I do to help you? Compassion and empirical reasoning. No special abilities are needed. (I recommend David Hume's Treastise of Human Nature, Book Three (ca 1739). The great Scotsman describes sympathy in the context of morality with a clarity and precision a modern neuropsychologist would be fortunate to achieve.)
Compassion and civic loyalty. A politician with those attributes ought to be the ideal servant of a republican state, no? Then seek out the sympathetic candidate and eschew the creep who puts on an empathetic display for the lying news media. Remember Joe Biden cheeking his watch while engaged in a fraudulent dumbshow of reverence for our war dead. And remember that foremost exponent of political empathy, the infamous Bill Clinton and his infamous Ah feel yor pain. If those memories turn your stomach, then you're healthier than most.
Biden has always been a nasty piece of work, even for a DC politician. He sandbagged Clarence Thomas in a way that was far beyond what partisanship may have required. Serial fabulist and plagiarist.
Beau may have been the one semi-decent person in the family after Joe's first wife drove across the highway into an oncoming truck.
Joe Biden has always been what we see now. It is interesting that in a 50-year career in Washington he was never viewed as being significant enough to stick with a label that reflected his vanity seasoned with his lack of smarts. He wasn't going anywhere. He wasn't worth taking out.
Peggy Noonan says a friend of his said to her, "Joe always thinks he is the smartest guy in the room." She replied, "Is it a small room?" Obama has been pretty clear about his contempt for Biden. They all knew. They never thought he'd get anywhere. Now he is POTUS.
Great. Sad.
@Narayan, also in the vehicle with Neila Biden at the time of the accident was a 1 year old, a 2 year old, and a 3 year old. I can picture a ruckus in the station wagon, with her turning her head from the road “for just a second.” That seems to be the standard excuse when the policeman is writing up the accident. Except this time she was deceased and could not say it.
Was she also under the influence? We will never know. It was 1972 and she was the wife of a senator-elect. Her BAC does not appear to have been tested.
Moondawggle. I was referring to the Next of Kin. Everybody else can rag all they want. And if the NoK happen to be correct, same thing. They get a break.
I was going along okay in Powell's autobiography until Somalia. He gave the same excuse Les Absent did about no armor.
"Was she also under the influence?"
Of COURSE she Was!!
i have Every Bit as much factual evidence to say that,
as Jo Biden has to say that the truck driver "drank his lunch"
Ok, first:
Get back to Obama-level empathy,
I can say that at no time in Obama's eight years as president, and in fact at no time prior or since, did I ever detect the slightest hint of "empathy" from him. I have frequently perceived preening, sometimes contempt for those not present, often dismissal... but never "empathy." So I'd say we're there already.
More on topic: the article's CYA clause about Biden's never having claimed that Beau died in combat, is like a Mafia don telling one of his underlings to "take care of" some problematic person, then immediately leaving the room so he doesn't actually witness what "taking care of" means. They know perfectly well that Biden's every-single-time juxtaposition of Beau's military service and his later, unrelated death are a rhetorical device Biden and, God help them, his speechwriters, apparently, use to tug at the emotions of people only half-listening to the speech - both those "traditional" blue-collar Democrat voters whose families do have a history of military service, and the newfangled "we all know that the military is where we stick the people who can't cut it in the real world, but you know, sensitivity and all, you've got to pretend they're special, so..." Democrat voters.
It works less well when the person is paying attention. The only thing that juxtaposition ever evokes in me, for instance, is, "Well, hell, my grandfather was an FBI agent and died of cancer years after he retired - that doesn't mean he was shot by Bonnie and Clyde, you miserable, belligerent doofus."
Also: ability to cry on command is common in psychopathy, which explains a lot to me about both this president and Hollywood.
Joe Biden is a puppet who thinks he is President of the United States. Now and then Joe barks out an order that takes effect only because his enabling cabal can't agree on what to do. Several such issues appear to have concerned the process of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, but Joe and the cabal want you to know that you're a neocon warmonger if you're unhappy with how the process played out.
I do not know where Biden got a reputation for being a moderate, or for having an affinity for blue collar workers, or for empathy.
I always thought of Biden as a mean, obnoxious blowhard.
He is. The Bidens were a well-off family before the Depression. Joe's father was something of a ne'er do well or a "downstart." The family also wasn't Irish either. Their roots went back to colonial Maryland and they were mostly English. The Irishness comes from Joe's mother's family, the Finnegans, and so I suppose does the working class thing.
Then there's when Joe came on the political scene. The 70s were something like the Last Hurrah for the old urban political machines and White ethnic Catholics in the Democratic Party. The 80s were something like the Last Hurrah for industrial unions as a power in the Democratic Party. Joe had to learn how to function in a very different political environment than today's Democrats do, and the belief that he had some special connection to the working class and to White Catholic ethnics got him the vice presidential and presidential nominations.
But mostly, as one blogger pointed out, Joe feels inadequate compared to the Ivy League types in government. He was also one of the poorer Senators when he started out. He has a chip on his shoulder. On the one hand, it makes him a boastful braggart punching up at people with advantages and abilities he didn't have and punching down at "little people" who get in his way. On the other hand, his feelings of inferiority can make him identify with ordinary people, and still more, can make others identify him as an ordinary guy, in contrast to the elite snobs.
The things that one might think would make Biden less resentful -- private school education, 50 years of power and position, great wealth -- actually make him more resentful. In that, he's a good representative of our age, when people who have quite enviable positions in the media are forever trying to redress past personal grievances and calling it "equity."
Biden's trick is to make people feel sympathy for him. He visits the afflicted and starts talking about his dead wife or dead children and people assume he cares, that he's connecting with them and feeling their pain, but it's more that he's making them feel his. So what's been called empathy, may just be how a particular routine response is perceived by outsiders.
The Catholic or Irish sense that we are all stumbling sufferers is a good starting point if you want to develop such a routine. It's something that we're very familiar with in the Kennedys. The record of family tragedy makes supporters assume that the Kennedys have a particular understanding of pain and rapport with sufferers. Did they -- did Teddy -- or is it just something people project onto the family? You could also compare and contrast Biden's "empathy" with Bill Clinton's. Clinton expressed what people felt was empathy without cataloguing his own sufferings. Does that mean that Clinton's "empathy" was more real or that Biden's was?
But I'm not going to say that Biden doesn't feel empathy or sympathy at all. That seems like a possible conclusion, but I'm not inside his head anymore than I'm inside of Trump's, and this kind of categorical conclusion assumes that one has more understanding of other people than one can have. It's also a cheap way of declaring absolute victory over one's opponents.
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