Joe Biden in Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden
On Abortion:
Allow women to choose, but no federal funding
I remember vividly the first time, in 1973, I had to go to the floor to vote on abortion. A fellow Senator asked how I would vote. “My position is that I am personally opposed to abortion, but I don’t think I have a right to impose my few on the rest of
society. I’ve thought a lot about it, and my position probably doesn’t please anyone. I think the government should stay out completely. I will not vote to overturn the Court’s decision. I will not vote to curtail a woman’s right to choose abortion.
But I will also not vote to use federal funds to fund abortion.“I’ve stuck to my middle-of-the-road position on abortion for more than 30 years. I still vote against partial birth abortion and federal funding, and
I’d like to make it easier for scared young mothers to choose not to have an abortion, but I will also vote against a constitutional amendment that strips a woman of her right to make her own choice.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.104-105
Jul 31, 2007
On Civil Rights:
1968: Wilmington riots failed at conversation between races
Wilmington was a strange place at the end of 1968. The city had been under martial law for nearly six months. The Democratic governor, Charles Terry, had called out the National Guard when rock and bottle throwing escalated to sniping, looting, & arson i
the days following Martin Luther King’s assassination.Seven months after the rioting, Gov. Terry refused to call off the Guard. News cameras would show up to do stories about the only city where the Guard was still patrolling black neighborhoods. The
white citizens were almost all happy to have the Guard there. They were afraid riots might ignite in the ghetto and spread. They were afraid Wilmington’s police force wasn’t big enough to keep it contained.
In the black neighborhoods of East Wilmington
residents were afraid. Guardsmen were prowling the streets with loaded weapons. Curfews were in effect. The news had a way of making these stories seem like a conversation between the races, but I knew blacks & whites weren’t talking to each other.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p. 42-43
Jul 31, 2007
On Civil Rights:
1978: opposed busing except for gov’t-intended segregation
I’ll never forget going to an event in the school gymnasium in a working-class town near Wilmington. Everybody in the room wanted to know where I really stood on busing. I tried to explain what I’d been doing in the
Senate and the difference between de facto (or unintentional) segregation and de jure (or government-intended) segregation. But the audience wanted a full-out mea culpa and a hard statement that I despised busing. And I got hot.
I wanted them to be clear where I stood. Look, I told them, I was against busing to remedy de facto segregation owing to housing patterns & community comfort, but if it was intentional segregation, I’d personally pay for helicopters to move the children.
There were howls in the crowd. I stand by this statement, but it was probably the single stupidest moment I could have chosen to make it. I actually felt physically threatened.
Busing took effect just a few weeks before the 1978 Election Day.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.127-128
Jul 31, 2007
On Crime:
Supports sentencing guidelines to put away violent criminals
Since the mid-1970s I’d been working on crime issues in the Judiciary Committee, and since the mid-1980s I had been the Democrats’ point man in the Senate on crime legislation. While
I have always been a defender of robust civil liberties for the accused, I have worked hard to give police the tools to fight crime--more cops on the street, better equipment, sentencing guidelines that put people away for committing violent crimes.
There have been times when my Democratic colleagues have thought I’ve gone too far over to the side of the police in law-and-order issues, but I have always felt that public safety and security is the first duty of government.
A government must ensure safe homes, streets, schools, and public places before it can fulfill any other promises.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.239
Jul 31, 2007
On Families & Children:
1990: authored the Violence Against Women Act
In 1990, I wrote legislation called the Violence Against Women Act. I was convinced this might be the most important piece of legislation I had introduced and among the most difficult to turn into law. I was surprised at the resistance from
inside-the-beltway women’s groups. I knew these groups didn’t entirely trust me because I wasn’t pure on the issue of abortion. But there were others things beyond the groups’ long-held suspicions of me. I got the sense that women’s advocacy groups were
worried that the VAWA would be a distraction from their main issues. And there was also a certain amount of personal pride I sensed among women. VAWA failed to reach the Senate floor in 1990 and finally passed in 1994. Violence against women would no
longer be written off as “she was asking for it” (rape), “sexual miscommunication” (date rape), or “a family matter” (domestic abuse). Once our criminal justice system recognized these as serious & inexcusable crimes, women could stop blaming themselves.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.240-245
Jul 31, 2007
On Government Reform:
1988: led fight against nomination of Robert Bork
[In 1988, Pres. Reagan nominated Robert Bork for Supreme Court Justice. As Judiciary Committee chair, Biden ran the confirmation hearings.] I had serious doubts about Bork. If there was an argument to be made against him, it would have to be made to
Republicans and Democrats in the political center. If we tried to make this a referendum on abortion rights, for example, we’d lose. At a meeting, I said, “If I lead this fight, it will not be a single issue campaign.” The NY Times called my staff to
confirm that I’d promised to “lead the fight” against Bork. The president’s spokesman said his boss found it “regrettable” that I had “chosen to politicize the hearings in this kind of partisan fashion.”
Bork was a bona fide scholar.
He had been solicitor general, acting attorney general, professor of law at Yale, and a judge. The way to stop Bork was on a question of his outside-the-mainstream judicial ideology. I thought it was time to avoid personal attacks. [Bork was defeated.]
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.170-173
Jul 31, 2007
On Government Reform:
The greatest sin is abuse of power
I was asked to give a talk about how my faith and religion informed my public policy views. It was a topic I had always shied away from because it makes me a little uncomfortable to carry religion into the arena of politics, but writing that speech
turned out to be one of the most enlightening exercises of my life.The central lesson I received from the Catholic Church and my parents had been the governing force in my political career.
To wit, the greatest sins on this earth are committed by people of standing and means who abuse their power.
With power and privilege, I was taught, comes a responsibility to treat others with respect and fairness. When we see people abusing power,
it is our duty to intercede on behalf of their victims.
As I looked back on my career, it was obvious that what had animated me was the belief that we should stand up to those who abused power, whether it was political, economic, or physical.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.237-238
Jul 31, 2007
On Homeland Security:
Missile defense is perfect metaphor for neo-isolationism
In 2001, Bush’s new foreign affairs team were so intent on going ahead with Reagan’s Star Wars missile defense shield that they were willing to pull out of earlier arms control treaties to get there, inviting, in my view, another arms race.
The missile defense system seemed to be the perfect metaphor for the neoisolationist policy. Let’s arm the heavens, they were saying, and protect the US, the rest of the world be damned.
The administration had said they were willing to walk away from the decades-old ABM Treaty in order to unilaterally develop and deploy the missile defense system, and now they were putting real money behind it. They were willing to put tens of billions
of dollars into the Maginot line in the sky that could quite likely set off another arms race, while cutting funding for a program to help Russia destroy its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons before they got into the hands of terrorists.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.291-292&298
Jul 31, 2007
On Homeland Security:
Urged Pres. Bush to return to Washington on 9/11
After I finished an interview on the morning of 9/11, my cell phone rang. President Bush was on the line. “I just watched you, and I’m really proud of you. You were saying the right things.”
When I asked him when he was heading to Washington, he said the intelligence community told him he shouldn’t. I recalled a story about the leader of the French resistance, Charles de Gaulle, near the close of World War II.
When France was liberated, there was a parade down the Champs-Elysees in Paris, led by de Gaulle. As they walked, shots rang out, and everyone hit the ground except de Gaulle.
He continued to walk ramrod straight. With that one defiant action he lifted France off its knees.
“Mr. President, come back to Washington,” I said. [Pres. Bush famously did].
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.303-304
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Childhood stuttering strengthened me
My childhood impediment was a stutter. When I was at home with my brothers and sister, hanging with neighborhood friends, or shooting the bull on the ball field, I was fine, but when I got thrown into a new situation or a new school, had to read in
front of the class, or wanted to ask out a girl, I just couldn’t do it. My freshman year, because of the stutter, I got an exemption from public speaking. Everybody knew it.
It was like having to stand in the corner with the dunce cap. There were days I wondered: How would I ever bear it?It’s a funny thing to say, but even if I could, I would not wish away the darkest days of the stutter.
That impediment ended up being a godsend for me. Carrying it strengthened me and made me a better person. The very things it taught me turned out to be invaluable lessons for my life as well as my chosen career.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p. 3-4
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
1970: won first election, to County Council, in GOP district
In 1970 I told my wife I thought I’d like to run for New Castle County Council. I explained it was a GOP district, so I probably wouldn’t win, but I’d learn a lot, which had to be a good thing for somebody who wanted to make a more serious run later.
I asked my sister, Val, if she’d run the campaign. She was a methodical organizer. She got voter records going back several elections, had an index card for every block in every neighborhood and started recruiting block captains.
I spent most of my time in Democratic precincts, but I also spent time going door to door in the middle-class neighborhoods like the one I grew up in. They were overwhelmingly Republican in 1970, but I knew how to talk to them. I understood they valued
good government & fiscal austerity & the environment. I promised to fight for open space. Those voters were key for me. The 1970 elections were a washout for the Democratic Party in Delaware, but I won election to the County Council by 2,000 votes.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p. 50
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
1972: beat GOP incumbent; 2nd youngest Senator ever elected
[My sister] Val had run every campaign I was in, and she would manage my Senate campaign too. The race for Senate was risk-free. Only a handful of people outside the family thought I had a real shot to win, so I figured even if I lost, people were going
to say, “That’s a nice young guy.” I was confident I could be a solid candidate. And I actually believed I could win.When the political reporters started to find out how hard I was working to win over voters, none of them called my running for the
Senate ridiculous. I was “one of the bright young men of the Democratic party.” I think they liked fresh blood to write about. At the same time, the smart guys covering Delaware politics didn’t give me a snowman’s chance in August. They’d note my lack of
a war chest, Sen. Boggs’s long-standing popularity, his quarter century of serving Delaware, and the slew of Democratic challengers he’d left by the roadside. [In 1972, Biden won by 3,000 votes and became the 2nd youngest senator ever elected.]
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p. 59-61
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
1972: Wife & child killed in pre-inauguration auto accident
[Just after Biden’s 30th birthday, after his election but before his inauguration into the Senate, he was informed his family had been in a traffic accident.] I kept telling myself that everything was going to be OK, but the minute I got to the hospital
& saw my brother’s face, I knew the worst had happened. My three children had been in the car with my wife when the accident happened. Neilia had been killed and so had our baby daughter. The boys were alive.Washington & the Senate had no hold on me.
I was supposed to be sworn in two weeks, but I could not bear to imagine the scene without Neilia. I told the Senate majority leader, Mike Mansfield, that I wasn’t going to be a Senator. Mansfield was relentless. He called the hospital every day to
tell me he needed me in the Senate and to keep me up to date. Mansfield told me I owed it to Neilia to a Senator. My wife had worked too hard for me to kick it away. Give me six months, Joe, Sen. Mansfield kept saying. So I agreed. Six months.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p. 79-82
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Politics is a noble calling
The first principles of politics I learned in the 1950s in my grandpop’s kitchen when I was about twelve years old. Grandpa wanted me to understand two things:
First, that nobody, no group is above others. Public servants are obliged to level with everybody, whether or not they’ll like what he has to say. Second, politics was a matter of personal honor.
A man’s word is his bond.If you do politics the right way, you can actually make people’s lives better. And integrity is the minimum ante to get into the game.
Nearly 40 years after I first got involved, I remain captivated by the possibilities of politics and public service. I believe my chosen profession is a noble calling.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p. xi-xvi
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
Remarried in 1977, willing to give up Senate for Jill
I met Jill Jacobs in 1975: I was 32; she was 24. In 1977 I asked her to marry me. Jill said she couldn’t give me up. I assured her I’d leave the Senate if she wanted me to. I’d given her my word. I’d already let a few people know they might want to be
ready to run for the Senate in case I got out. I was going to have to show Jill I meant it, [so I concluded] “I’ll tell Bill Frank I’m not running.” Frank was the chief political reporters at the Wilmington News-Journal.
I could hear Frank’s phone ringing. Then I heard a dial tone. Jill had her finger on the phone cradle. She’d cut off the call. She told me later why: “If I denied you your dream, I would not be marrying the man I fell in love with.”
Jill and I were married by a priest at the UN chapel in NYC in 1977. Beau and Hunter stood with us at the altar. The way they thought of it, the four of us were getting married.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.116-117
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
1988: Presidential run intended as base-building for 1992
After President Reagan won a second term in 1984, the question of my running was back on the table. It would be a wide-open field in 1988--no incumbent and no heir apparent on the Democratic side. I was pretty sure the most formidable Democrat,
Mario Cuomo, wasn’t going to run. And when I took a look at likely candidates--Gary Hart, Richard Gephardt, Jesse Jackson--I felt I measured up. I was just 42, but after a decade on the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee and nearly that long on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, I knew the world and America’s place in it in a way few politicians did.If someone had hooked me up to a lie detector in
1988 and asked if I was going to be a fully announced candidate for 1988, I would have said no. If they had asked me if I was building a base to run for president in 1992 or 1996, I would have said, “Absolutely.”
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.143-146
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
1988: plagiarized law school paper, but not malevolently
During the 1988 presidential race, there was a new story bubbling about problems I’d had in law school. Now, in addition to everything else, I had to answer for my screw-up in Legal Methods 22 years earlier. This was an academic mistake.
I hadn’t been trying to cheat. My gurus advised me to just say I did it and ask for forgiveness. I said, “It was an academic mistake. I wasn’t trying to hide it. If I was trying to hide it, why would
I cite this article that no one else in the class found? I didn’t cheat.“
I’d made a stupid mistake 22 years earlier, I told the press. ”I was wrong, but I did not intentionally move to mislead anybody. I am in this race to stay.
I am in this race to win.“ The NY Times headline was ”Biden admits plagiarism in School but says it was not ‘malevolent.’“ [As a result, Biden withdrew from the presidential race.]
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.198-202
Jul 31, 2007
On Principles & Values:
1988: suffered aneurysm requiring brain surgery
After a CT scan and an angiogram, the doctor who explained the results of the tests looked worried. I had an aneurysm lying just below the base of my brain. That is what had knocked me out the night before. I was lucky to be alive.
But if the aneurysm bled again, I probably wouldn’t survive.The size of the worst bulge and the leak meant that a fatal rebleed could be imminent. Surgery to shore up the spot where I’d bled was the best chance I had of survival.
My chances of surviving the surgery were certainly better than 50-50. But the chances of waking up with serious deficits to my mental facilities were more significant. Any incidental damage could leave me seriously impaired.
The most likely incidence
was loss of speech. Dr. George said what he was about to do was going to be difficult, but he had done many of these before. But he recommended I speak to my family--it might be my last chance. [Biden fully recovered from the surgery.]
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.219-222
Jul 31, 2007
On War & Peace:
1995: pushed to lift arms embargo in Bosnia
Given the feckless performance of the UN in Bosnia, it was no surprise that the Bosnian Serbs violated UN resolutions with impunity. Emboldened, Milosevic, Karadzic, & their generals overran the safe zone of Srebrenica in July 1995, and it was my saddest
day in the Senate.7,000 Muslims were killed in Srebrenica. UN forces stood there & watched. I thought about the times I’d been told that the Bosnians were not able to defend themselves against the Serbs. Of course they couldn’t. They had no weapons.
The UN had seen to that. The UN had disgraced itself.
I went back to the Senate to go on the record. “Time does not work for these people. They will all be dead by the time the West decides to do anything about this problem. We have stood by and
watched something no one thought would ever happen again in Europe. It is happening now.” The next day, nearly three years after I’d called for the plan, the Senate voted to lift the arms embargo on Bosnia. The House followed. NATO began its air campaign
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.283-284
Jul 31, 2007
On War & Peace:
1995: pushed Clinton to bomb Serbia to free Kosovo
I pressed Pres. Clinton to begin air strikes against Serb military positions in Kosovo and Belgrade. I kept saying to go ahead, that public opinion in Europe was running against Milosevic. But it was easy for me to say; it was Clinton who had to take the
heat.And he did. In March 1999, I introduced a resolution authorizing the president to use any means necessary to stop Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. With Clinton resolved to act, NATO began bombing Serb targets in 1999.
From the first days
of the bombing, the criticism of Clinton by the Republicans was withering. But through the 78 day campaign, Clinton never wavered in public. I got worried about his resolve once. Clinton asked, “What would you say to my halting the bombing?” I said, “I’d
call a press conference and say you reneged on a promise. Do not yield. Milosevic will capitulate.”
I have no idea if my advice had any effect on Clinton, but he did not halt the bombings. He kept the pressure on, and it paid off.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.285-288
Jul 31, 2007
On War & Peace:
Bush invaded Iraq as the weakest of the Axis of Evil
The Bush neo-cons identified the biggest threats--North Korea, Iran, & Iraq. Toppling the Taliban had been a nice start for the Neo-cons, but they thought the way to handle the world’s malcontents and to avoid war was to take out one of the “axis of evil
leaders in a way that made the others quake. They wanted to leverage our nation’s awesome military power in a way that sent a strong message: enable terrorists and we’ll wipe you out. You’re either with us, Bush liked to say of his ”war on terror,“ or
you’re against us.I thought this approach was flawed. The facts showed that terrorist groups didn’t base their training camps in countries with strong governments or dictators; they found safe haven in failed states & grew stronger in the vacuum of
power.
There was a lot of noise about overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Of the three Axis of Evil countries, Iraq was the country that could put up the least military resistance, and I believed Cheney & Rumsfeld were pushing the president toward an invasion
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.330-331
Jul 31, 2007
On War & Peace:
Voted for Iraq War resolution to avoid war in Iraq
I made my pitch for Biden-Lugar, [the alternative Iraq war authorization resolution], pointing out the very real constraints it put on the president.But the president was giving personal assurances that he would try every avenue of diplomacy before he
took the country to war. And it was clear that Colin Powell and members of the Joint Chiefs were not eager to go to war in Iraq. With that in mind, I decided to vote for the resolution.
I believed the resolution passed by Congress provided the firm
& united support Powell needed to be able to get the United Nations Security Council to pass and enforce a new resolution that got the inspectors back into Iraq, kept Saddam in his box, and thus avoided a war. I wasn’t alone in that.
I made a mistake.
I underestimated the influence of Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the rest of the neocons; I vastly underestimated their disingenuousness and incompetence. So Bush went to war just the way the neocons wanted him to--without significant international backing.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.339-342
Jul 31, 2007
On War & Peace:
End neocon fantasy of remaking Iraq in our image
During the 2004 campaign, Kerry had talked of making me his secretary of state, and I believed we had a real handle on how to fix the situations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and in diplomatic circles around the globe. I knew the first steps
I’d take in Iraq to refocus our efforts on providing physical and economic security for Iraqis and basics like electricity, fuel, and sewage removal.
I’d put a swift end to the neo-con fantasy of quickly and decisively remaking an Iraq in our image; privatizing industries and building democratic institutions were distant goals that we could not impose on this fragile country.
I also knew which key GOP leaders I could count on to build real bipartisan support and I felt I knew where to find the common ground.
Source: Promises to Keep, by Joe Biden, p.354-355
Jul 31, 2007
Page last updated: Apr 06, 2019