© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Sept. 27, 2007

This is the eighth in a series of reviews on books written by the 2008 presidential contenders. See the archives for earlier reviews, and check back soon for a look at Mitt Romney's "Turnaround." By Joseph Biden ISBN 978-1-4000-6536-3 Random House 371 pp. Purchase This Book

As the elder statesman of the Democratic presidential field, Joseph Biden believes his 35 years of Senate experience sets him apart from the pack. So it's no surprise that in his memoir, "Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics," Delaware's longest-serving senator focuses more on his accomplishments than his goals.

Biden, with help from Mark Zwonitzer, reined in his trademark verbosity to write a memoir that, at nearly 400 pages, is a surprisingly fast but meaty read. Sprinkled throughout are the usual anecdotes about larger-than-life political figures, legislative battles and Washington deal-making. Biden doesn't break any news about his life or politics, but he's a gifted storyteller aided by a compelling personal narrative. Biden, after all, survived the tragic deaths of his first wife Neilia and infant daughter, Naomi; his own near-death as a result of an aneurysm; a debilitating stutter as a child; and plagiarism accusations that derailed his 1988 presidential bid. It's clear the two-time presidential candidate, at age 64, has taken full measure of his life -- the good and the bad.

American foreign policy and Biden's internationalist bent are dominant themes throughout the book, as is the importance of public service. But for Biden, nothing supplants family. Early on, entire chapters are devoted to his first wife and current wife Jill Jacobs. There doesn't seem to be a major life decision he's made without consulting the whole Biden clan. During an annual Thanksgiving celebration, after John Kerry lost the 2004 presidential election, Biden writes: "Politics seemed so far away from Nantucket on those evenings, and my family was healthy and happy. And our children and our grandchildren all genuinely wanted to be with us.... Whatever happened from here on out, Jill and I had accomplished all the big things, and we'd done it together."

Biden's special affection for his siblings, particularly Valerie Owens, also has played a large role in shaping his character. Owens has served as a trusted political adviser and campaign manager over the years, and she helped raise Biden's sons, Beau and Hunter, moving into his home after Neilia's death. Despite the title of the memoir, there are no shots of Biden glad-handing political glitterati; all the photos are of family.

After family comes America's responsibility to its ideals, its people, and the rest of the world. The Washington establishment once viewed Biden, elected to the Senate at age 29, as shallow and blustery. Now Senate Foreign Relations chairman, Biden has spent his career burnishing his foreign policy credentials, from negotiating American intervention in the Bosnian conflict (which he considers one of his greatest achievements) to authoring legislation calling for a phased troop withdrawal from Iraq, a plan to partition the country and a decentralized government in that region (which many presidential candidates have adopted in some form). His mastery of foreign policy has earned respect from both Republicans and Democrats, and Biden isn't shy about touting those bona fides during the Democratic presidential debates, where he's clearly in his element -- or in his book.

Biden's confidence in foreign affairs started early in his career. Recounting a trip to Yugoslavia with famed diplomat Averell Harriman in 1970s to meet with Tito shortly before the Yugoslav ruler's death, he writes: "I'd been a senator for a full term and had some real foreign policy experience: I knew the latest intelligence, and I'd gone toe-to-toe with [former Soviet Union Premier Aleksey] Kosygin. In fact, I had wondered if maybe Harriman's views and experiences were no longer relevant to what was going on in 1979. But to be in that room with those two men, whose generation was passing from the scene, was remarkable." It's easy to forget how long the toothsome and tanned Biden has been in public life, and how much history he's witnessed up close. But passages like that are plentiful enough to remind readers.

Biden's no-nonsense, occasionally preachy style is also on full display. This is the senator who called former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic a war criminal to his face, and told President George W. Bush -- while Vice President Dick Cheney was in the room -- that he'd fire Cheney if it were constitutionally possible. Unsurprisingly, he blasts Cheney, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other "neocons" at the Pentagon for their "disingenousness and incompetence" in handling the Iraq war and in advising President Bush.

The president gets his fair share of criticism, but Biden doesn't take the same kind of potshots at Bush that he lobs at the rest of the administration. In typical Biden fashion, he takes the long view of the president's decisions, giving him a scolding which manages to come off more paternalistic than stinging: "I believe that President Bush failed to lead. History will judge him harshly not for the mistakes he made -- we all make mistakes -- but for the opportunities he squandered." (Iraq could get even more personal for Biden in the next year. His son Beau, Delaware's attorney general, serves in the state's National Guard and his unit is scheduled to deploy in 2008.)

The memoir suffers from some self-aggrandizement -- Biden is, after all, a career politician -- but it's pure Biden and his voice never falters, so the memoir doesn't hit any false notes. More troubling is Biden's failure to mention the 1991 Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings, which the Delaware senator presided over as chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Anita Hill's sexual harassment allegations against the future Supreme Court justice during those hearings ignited national outrage and fundamentally changed the concept and legality of harassment in the workplace. Biden did not want to move ahead with an investigation unless Hill went public -- a sentiment shared by many of his colleagues. Nevertheless, Biden shouldered much of the criticism from feminist groups and others for the carnival atmosphere of the hearings, which ultimately led to a conservative justice on the bench.

The omission of this chapter in Biden's political life is especially glaring, considering Biden devotes significant ink to failed Supreme Court justice nominee Robert Bork and his success as Judiciary chairman in blocking Bork's confirmation. It's also puzzling given Biden's obvious pride in introducing and shepherding through Congress the landmark 1994 Violence Against Women Act [PDF] (the other major achievement he cites in the book). On the other hand, the episode that torpedoed his presidential hopes in 1988 gets solid treatment, with Biden making convincing mea culpas for failing to attribute a stump speech in Iowa to former British Labour Party Leader Neil Kinnock.

Biden is not likely to win the Democratic presidential nomination, but he won't hold a pity party. He's happy as a father, husband, brother and senator. Before surgery to remove a life-threatening aneurysm in the late 1980s, Biden seems to have gotten it right: "No matter what happened, I knew my sons would be fine. And I had lived up to my expectations. In the moment that mattered most to me, I had been the kind of man I wanted to be."

--Kellie Lunney, National Journal