Posted on 08/31/2008 5:26:35 AM PDT by Kaslin
Joe Biden once got in trouble for plagiarizing a speech and inflating his academic record. So it will not surprise you to find that his famous working-class background turns out to be mythical. But it may surprise you to learn that Biden isn't the one who has trouble with the facts.
In his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic convention, Biden referred to "those of us who grew up in middle-class neighborhoods like Scranton and Wilmington." In the video preceding his address, he said that the people he knew as a boy didn't regard themselves as working class but as middle class.
So what did the news media report? "Sen. Joseph R. Biden accepted the vice presidential nomination of the Democratic Party with a speech that harkened back to his working-class roots in Scranton," said The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal informed readers that "Sen. Joe Biden showcased his working-class upbringing." The New York Times said he "spoke frequently, and earnestly, of his blue-collar background."
No, he didn't. In fact, he did just the opposite. Anyone paying attention would have noticed as much. But the legend of Joe Biden, born in a welding shop, dies hard with political reporters, who find it easier to romanticize a gritty, hardscrabble childhood than a conventionally comfortable one.
The facts are there for anyone who wants to look at them. When Joe Biden Sr. died in 2002, his obituary in the News-Journal of Wilmington reported that when he married in 1941, "he was working as a sales representative for Amoco Oil Co. in Harrisburg."
It went on, "Biden also was an executive in a Boston-based company that supplied waterproof sealant for U.S. merchant marine ships built during World War II. After the war, he co-owned an airport and crop-dusting service on Long Island." Upon moving his family to Delaware, the News-Journal said, Biden "worked in the state first as a sales manager for auto dealerships and later in real-estate condominium sales."
Executive, co-owner and manager? Those titles identify the jobholder as solidly middle class, if not better. They fall in the category of white-collar occupations, not blue-collar.
And Biden Sr. clearly knew the difference. In his book, "Promises to Keep," Biden writes that his father was "the most elegantly dressed, perfectly manicured, perfectly tailored car sales manager Wilmington, Del., had ever seen."
Biden notes that he himself could have gone to the best public high school in Delaware. Instead, he enrolled at Archmere Academy, a Catholic prep school that made him think he had "died and gone to Yale." He took a summer job to help pay the steep tuition, which today amounts to $18,450 a year.
That doesn't mean the Bidens never had financial trouble. Biden says they had to move in with his mother's parents after one setback, and he remembers "when the electric company would send a collector to the house."
For nearly a year, the father was reduced to cleaning boilers for a heating company. But middle-class people are not immune to unemployment and bad business deals, and the Bidens regained their footing before long.
So where did he get his working-class reputation? Partly it comes from Biden's streetwise demeanor and his preoccupation with the fact that his family wasn't as well-off as some of the people he knew -- which seems to have given him a permanent chip on his shoulder. Partly it comes from his frequent tributes to blue-collar folks, such as the firefighters who took him to the hospital when he suffered an aneurysm.
But mostly it reflects journalists' weakness for simple, vivid narratives. It's easy to write about a statesman who worked his way up from a log cabin. It's easy to write about a leader who came from great wealth. But someone growing up the son of a sales manager is a bit lacking in color and drama.
The errors about Biden bring to mind the recent satirical report from humorist Andy Borowitz: "A member of the U.S. Olympic diving team was disqualified from competition today when it was learned that he did not have a sufficiently compelling human story line to exploit on the NBC telecast of the worldwide sporting event."
Biden just didn't have a sufficiently compelling human story line for a presidential campaign. Luckily, he does now.
All the years Plugs talks a lot be he never says anything.
Good write up by Mr. Chapman, but he left out the draft dodging component of young Joe’s life; asthma my ass! The average young man his age had to do some type of military service. Joe was above it all.
PLUGS...LOL, I’m going to start calling him PLUGS
I can’t wait for the Barracuda / Plugs debate...hehehe
bump
“he never says anything”
Not true. He is fond of believing the things he makes up. Perhaps if he is so fond of romanticizing, he should be a goth romance writer—one of the few things he may be suited to do.
Good thing his family escaped from the Welsh Coal mines, where instead of using expensive ponies to pull heavy coal carts up to the surface they used Biden women and children while the men picked away singing Welsh coal songs.
I get a little teary thinking about it.
Biden looked like such a moron trying to put on the “folksy, Joe Bubba Steelworker” persona yesterday. He appeared more like a drunk.
In those days Amoco was known as Standard Oil of Indiana, but it is now owned by BP. So, "Plugs's" father was a salesman for an evil oil company - I don't see how the 'RATS could allow the son of an oil company person to be on the ticket. "Plug's" father was in the oil business - just like George Bush.
...draft dodging component of young Joe’s life...
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Not sure this can of worms should be reopened, even though the R’s got by it with a POW and Female.
Both sides have enough shame on this Military (or lack of) issue. I am still ‘rankled’ by the Cheney comment inre ‘I had better things to do’ but for the MSM to successfully paint “W” and “WJC” with the same brush and Clinton coming out the hero while W is portrayed as a slug is kind of hard to stomach...
The above is just a couple of reasons why MSM ceases to ‘exist’ in my corner of the world...That and such stunts as having the 1st 10 minutes of a local news broadcast on a Fri night in Aug dedicated to ‘why BO hasn’t picked his VP and the speculation of who it may be’....
Got Nero for Fiddlin while Rome burned when is it MSM’s turn?
Here’s Joe recycling the same BS, only in this clip he appears to have been over-served:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZN5khF2i2ek
The only working class roots Biden has are his hair plugs.
Joseph R. Biden Sr . dies at 86
News Journal, The (Wilmington, DE) - September 3, 2002
Author: CHARLOTTE HALE, Staff
Senator’s father had been a sales rep and an executive
By CHARLOTTE HALE Staff reporter
Joseph R. Biden Sr ., the 86-year-old father of Delaware’s senior senator, died Monday morning at the senator’s home in Wilmington.
The elder Biden had a lingering illness, said Margaret Aitken, spokeswoman for Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Biden was born in Baltimore in 1915 to the late Joseph H. Biden and the former Mary Elizabeth Robinette, and he moved to Wilmington when he was a boy.
He attended St. Paul’s School and Wilmington High School before graduating from St. Thomas Academy in Scranton, Pa., where his family later moved.
Biden married Jean Finnegan of Scranton in 1941, when he was working as a sales representative for Amoco Oil Co. in Harrisburg.
In addition to their oldest child, Joseph Jr., the couple had three more children, James B. Biden of Merion Station, Pa. Francis W. Biden of Florida and Valerie Biden Owens of Kennett Square, Pa.
Biden also was an executive in a Boston-based company that supplied waterproof sealant for U.S. merchant marine ships built during World War II. After the war, he co-owned an airport and crop-dusting service on Long Island, N.Y.
He and his family moved to Delaware in 1953. He worked in the state first as a sales manager for auto dealerships and later in real-estate condominium sales. He lived most recently near Prices Corner.
Biden is survived by his wife and four children, along with 10 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and numerous in-laws.
(snip)
This is the typical Baby Boomer symptom of affluenza. Your objective economic condition is irrelevant, it's your relative economic condition that matters. So if you're upper middle class but live in an upper-upper middle class community, you're poor. What nonsense.
I was having dinner with two business associates recently and we began reminiscing about our childhoods. My Dad worked in a sweatshop as a pieceworker, then tended bar on weekends when he could for extra money. When the shop was slow, he had no work and most weeks we ran out of money on Thursday. It never occurred to me that we were poor just because the neighbors had more. Dad kept a roof over our heads and food on the table, even though it was often macaroni and peas. Tony, described his experiences in the Bronx as the son of a plumber and how at a very young age he would go out on jobs as a helper so his Dad could save the cost of one worker. Tony never felt poor either.
Then the third member of our party described his "hardscrabble" upbringing. His father was a school administrator who never made more than $32,000 a year... in the 1960s. Tony and I looked at each other. My Dad made $7,000 in a good year. Tony considered himself well off because his father was usually good for $9-10,000.
"But you have no idea what was like to be the poorest family in Great Neck" came the reply.
Holy smoke. What a delusional nerd.
I thank my father every minute of every day for the life he gave me. Work ethic. Love of literature and music. Yes, he worked in a sweat shop but we always had good books in the house and great music playing on the phonograph--from Benny Goodman to Giacomo Puccini. But the most important gift he gave me was a sense of perspective: Get what you want out of life and reject the ridiculous notion that happiness comes from having more than your neighbor.
So, "Plug's" father did not serve in World War II, he had an occupational deferrment (to be honest, so did my father who was a paint chemist) and here's the kicker - HE SOLD USED CARS!
“Good thing his family escaped from the Welsh Coal mines, where instead of using expensive ponies to pull heavy coal carts up to the surface they used Biden women and children while the men picked away singing Welsh coal songs.”
Heh-heh
BELLS OF RHYMNEY
Oh what will you give me
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
Is there hope for the future
Cry the brown bells of Merthyr
Who made the mine owner
Say the black bells of Rhondda
And who robbed the miner
Cry the grim bells of Blaina
They will plunder willy-nilly
Cry the bells of Caerphilly
They have fangs, they have teeth
Say the loud bells of Neath
Even God is uneasy
Say the moist bells of Swansea
They will plunder willy-nilly
Say the bells of Caerphilly
Put the vandals in court
Say the bells of Newport
All would be well if, if, if
Cry the green bells of Cardiff
Why so worried, sisters, why
Sang the silver bells of Wye
And what will you give me
Say the sad bells of Rhymney
“the legend of Joe Biden, born in a welding shop,”
LOL
Good story. Many of us can relate. I recall my younger sister coming home from school, and asking Mom, “Are we poor?” Someone mentioned to her that we were poor, and it really upset her at the time. Heck, we didn’t know that. We thought kids in Ethiopa were the poor ones.
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