Joe Biden, the same disgraceful man then and now

 William Perry Pendley

Professor Paul Kengor just released another important book, The Divine Plan: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Dramatic End of the Cold War, but what he wrote earlier in The Judge about Joe Biden is worth another look as Biden runs (again!) for president.
In an episode that was hot news then but cooled since, Biden showed himself to be a showboating, self-indulgent, shiftless skunk in perilous times. He remains unchanged, unembarrassed (he seems incapable of shame) and unrepentant about that incident, if he remembers it, or any of the others that, were he not a denizen of the District of Columbia, would have sent him into hiding, not on a quest for the Oval Office.
Suffering double-digit unemployment, inflation, and interest rates and told by President Jimmy Carter the nation’s best days were behind it and that, with oil and gas running out, only privation lay ahead, Americans elected the optimistic but untested Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, foreign affairs presented an array of challenges. American hostages had only just, on Reagan’s inauguration, been released by Iran; we were beholden to the Middle East for energy supplies; and the Soviet Union and its proxies were on the march in Europe, Africa, and South America with mutually assured destruction a misstep away. Rejecting détente, Reagan promised, “We win; they lose.” Little wonder the world was uncertain, edgy, and frightened.
For secretary of state, Reagan selected and the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed, after a prolonged and pugnacious hearing, the flamboyant and incendiary Gen. Al Haig. To, as Reagan often said, “pour oil on troubled waters,” he selected as Haig’s No. 2 Judge William P. Clark. Clark was a tried, true, top Reagan hand, his closest male friend in Washington and perhaps the world and an experienced jurist who had recently stepped down from the California Supreme Court.
Clark was nominated deputy secretary for another reason: to resolve a deficiency identified by a 1975 blue-ribbon panel (the Murphy Commission) that the deputy must manage the vast department. Clark read that report and, ever deferential to Reagan and Haig on foreign policy, sought to restore good order and discipline at the department.
All this was known to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., but he played Clark’s confirmation hearing for sport and a spot in the Washington Post, which he won with the headline, “The Interrogation of Justice Clark.” “I have a great deal of admiration for you,” he began and then, as the Post reported, proved he did not.

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William Perry Pendley (@Sagebrush_Rebel) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is an attorney and the author of Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan's Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today.