Joe Biden - Intellectually Barren?

During the 1988 Presidential campaign, correspondent Elizabeth Drew of The New Yorker followed the candidates, documenting and analyzing the day-by-day political drama which was published in 1989 in her Election Journal - Political Events of 1987 - 1988.

In remarking on both Gary Hart's and Joe Biden's campaigns, Drew contended that their ambitions were both squelched because of inherent character traits. Hart was knocked out because he "seemed incapable of exercising self-control in his sex life." A "great many people" were aware of it and expected his campaign to eventually run into trouble. It did.

Drew stated furthermore:

Biden, too, was knocked out by a weakness that was going to catch up with him anyway -- a kind of intellectual barrenness. Biden is a nice guy who hasn't demonstrated much depth or mental or verbal discipline. So when he was caught appropriating the biography of British Labour leader Neil Kinnock -- without attribution a couple of times, but that wasn't really the point -- and inflating his academic credentials, he was hit in the area of his greatest vulnerability.

So, in the eyes of Elizabeth Drew, a professional observer and deeply insightful analyst of politics, Joe Biden was kind of intellectually barren in 1988 at the age of 45. The lack of depth, or barrenness, was most demonstrated by Biden's habit of taking action or speaking without thinking things through.

Of course, being intellectually barren at age 45 in 1988 doesn't mean that the same holds true for Biden in 2008 at the age of 65. On the other hand, Biden's habits don't seemed to have changed over the past 20 years. He continues to have a reputation for producing the guaranteed gaffe.

Source:

Election Journal - Political Events of 1987 - 1988, Elizabeth Drew
copyright 1989 by Elizabeth Drew, Inc.
Published by William Morrow and Company, Inc.
ISBN 0-688-08332-3

I personally believe that Biden's 35 years in Congress demonstrate that he is more of an elder legislator than an elder statesman. I also think that 35 years in the halls of the Capitol would tend to atrophy the brains of even the most hardy intellects. In other words, if members lack intellectual depth on arrival to Congress, there is no reason to believe they will become deeper thinkers while there.

Also: The Jawa Report