Those old enough to remember Kitty Kelley know she was sometimes a fawning admirer of her subjects or intent on doing a hatchet job. Haven't read the whole thing but Biden kind of comes off like a loon. He also lies a lot.
Read the whole thing
Some tidbits:
Read the whole thing
Some tidbits:
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Biden says he no longer allows himself the luxury of long-range planning, but he enjoys the prestige of being a Senator and seems committed to finishing his six-year term. In fact, he says he might consider running for President. "My wife always wanted me to be on the Supreme Court," he says. "But while I know I can be a good Senator, and I know I can be a good President, I do know that I could never be another Oliver Wendell Holmes. I know I could have easily made the White House with Neilia. And my family still expects me to be there one of these days. With them behind me anything can happen."
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His Senate suite looks like a shrine. A large photograph of Neilia's tombstone hangs in the inner office; her pictures cover every wall. A framed copy of Milton's sonnet, "On His Deceased Wife," stands next to a print of Byron's "She Walks in Beauty."
In his office in the New Senate Office Building surrounded by more than 35 pictures of his late wife, Biden launched into a three-hour reminiscence. It wasn't maudlinhe seemed to enjoy remembering aloud. He was the handsome football hero. She was the beautiful homecoming queen. Their marriage was perfect. Their children were beautiful. And they almost lived happily ever after.
"Neilia was my very best friend, my greatest ally, my sensuous lover. The longer we lived together the more we enjoyed everything from sex to sports. Most guys don't really know what I lost because they never knew what I had. Our marriage was sensational. It was exceptional, and now that I look around at my friends and my colleagues, I know more than ever how phenomenal it really was. When you lose something like that, you lose a part of yourself that you never get back again.
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Let me show you my favorite picture of her," he says, holding up a snapshot of Neilia in a bikini. "She had the best body of any woman I ever saw. She looks better than a Playboy bunny, doesn't she?
"My beautiful millionaire wife was a conservative Republican before she met me. But she changed her registration. At first she didn't want me to run for the Senatewe had such a beautiful thing going, and we knew all those stories about what politics can do to a marriage. She didn't want that to happen. At first she stayed at home with the kids while I campaigned but that didn't work out because I'd come back too tired to talk to her. I might satisfy her in bed but I didn't have much time for anything else. That's when she started campaigning with me and that's when I started winning. You know, the people of Delaware really elected her," he says, "but they got me."
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Some detractors accuse him of shrouding himself in widower's weeds, of dredging up his late wife in every speech. But Biden prides himself on being candid and honest"That's the only way I could be with the wife I had." He understands the accusations: "I'm not the kind of guy everyone likes. My personality either grabs you or it doesn't. My sister says I almost lost the campaign because ofmy personality, and my brother-in-law says you either love me or you hate me. I'm not an in-between type.
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"I am proud to be a politician. There is no other walk of life which can do more good for mankind than politics. It influences every thing that happens to the American people. You might think I'm off the wall when I say this, but I believe what Plato said 2,000 years ago: 'The penalty good men pay for not becoming involved in politics is being governed by men worse than themselves."
He defines politics as power. "And, whether you like it or not, young lady," he says, leaning over his desk to shake a finger at me, "us cruddy politicians can take away that First Amendrnent of yours if we want to."
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Later he talks about remarriage. "I do indeed want to get married again. I hate the image of the gay, young bachelor about town. That's just not my style. I am not a womanizer. I would like very much to fall in love and be married again because basically I am a family man. I want to find a woman to adore me again.
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Senator Biden's friends say he is looking for more than a wife and mother. "He also needs to find a First Lady," says one, "a woman who enjoys politics and will help him get to the White House. I don't know if he'll end up marrying Francie Barnard but I do know that the woman he marries will he as rich and as pretty as she is."
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The Senator shows a healthy respect for money: "Politics is a damn expensive business. I had one hell of a time trying to raise money as a candidate. I had to put a second mortgage on roy house to get that campaign started, and I ended up spending over $300,000 to get elected. I believe that public financing of federal election campaigns is the only thing that will insure good candidates and save the two-party system. It is the most degrading thing in the world to go out with your hat in your hand and beg for money, but that's what you have to do if you haven't got your own resources.'
He feels the indignity is compounded by the temptation to sell out to big business or big labor for financial help, and says it's almost impossible for a candidate to remain true to his conscience in this situation. He admits that more than once he was tempted to compromise to get campaign money. "I probably would have if it hadn't been for the ramrod character of my Scotch Presbyterian wife," he say's. "I am not a rich man. And my family does not have money. If I sold every thing I own, including my house and cars, I could probably' scratch up S200,000, but that's nothing compared to most of the guys in the Senate."
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Unlike most other senators, Biden makes no bones about saving he is underpaid. Last September, when the Senate was debating a pay raise for itself, he said, "I dont know about the rest of you but I am worth a lot more than my salary of $42,500 a year in this body. It seems to me that we should flat out tell the American people we are worth our salt."
WOW! When you have the time, I strongly urge people to read the rest.Quote:
Biden resents being called the bright young liberal of the New Left. "I hate that picture," he says, "and I don't care how that damn Americans for Democratic Action rates me. Those ADA ratings get us into so much trouble that a lot of us sit around thinking up ways to vote conservative just so we don't come out with a liberal rating.
When it comes to civil rights and civil liberties, I'm a liberal but that's it. I'm really quite conservative on most other issues. My wife said I was the most socially conservative man she had ever known. I'm a screaming liberal when it comes to senior citizens because I really think they are getting screwed. I'm a liberal on health care because I believe it is a birth right of every human beingnot just some damn privilege to be meted out to a few people.
But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty, and acid, I'm about as liberal as your grandmother. I don't like the Supreme Court decision on abortion. I think it went too far. I don't think that a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.