Fawning, gushing interview with biden from 50 years ago. Chilling in its clairvoyance

The article below--published in The Washingtonian on June 1, 1974--weirded me out big-time.  It's from an interview of Porridgebrain--yes, corrupt joe himself--by Kitty Kelley.  And again...it's from 1974.  And he talks constantly about becoming president.

Joseph Robinette Biden, the 31-year-old Democrat from Delaware, is the youngest man in the Senate, which makes him a celebrity of sorts. But there’s something else that makes him good copy: Shortly after his election in November 1972 his wife Neilia and infant daughter were killed in a car accident. Suddenly this handsome young man struck down in his moment of glory was prey to scores of hungry reporters clamoring to write soul-searching stories.

"Handsome"?  Are you kidding?  But this opening 'graf sets the stage for the absolutely fawning, slobbering interview and article.
   Dozens of lines name-dropping all the DC elites who were inviting the "handsome" young man--star-crossed by tragedy--to parties omitted.

...the combination of youth, death, and a Kennedy-style upset victory continues to fascinate the press. How did an unknown attorney with [less than] two years’ experience as a county councilman manage to topple Delaware’s firmly entrenched 63-year-old Republican Senator Caleb Boggs? Boggs, a two-term congressman, two-term governor, and two-term senator, wanted to retire in 1972; President Nixon persuaded him to run for a third term, suggesting that he resign after a year.

Biden spoiled the game plan. He was unknown—his statewide recognition factor was eighteen percent, compared to Boggs’ 93 percent—yet he defeated Boggs in 1972.

Like the alleged "81 million votes," eh?  Much has been said about Obozo's lack of experience before being elected president.  He came out of nowhere.  Biden was even worse: his entire political experience before winning the senate seat was...he was a member of the New Castle County Council, taking office on January 5, 1971.  Just months later he began planning to run for the senate in the fall of '72.  No accomplishments, no personal fortune.  How in the hell..?  He won by 2,300 votes.

Biden had little time to savor his victory. The week before Christmas 1972 he was in Washington putting a staff together. His wife, baby daughter, and two young sons were driving home west of Wilmington after shopping for a Christmas tree when a hay truck hit their station wagon.  Biden’s wife and daughter were killed. His two boys lived.

Biden was devastated and wanted to resign. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him to stay, promising him several prestigious committee assignments. The Senate passed a resolution allowing him to be sworn in at the hospital bedsides of his sons.

That was more than a year ago, and at the time he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay in the Senate through 1973. He said he would resign if his Senate duties took too much time away from his sons. “They can always get another senator, but my boys cannot get another father.”

It's all just too perfect, eh?

Biden says 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.  I know I can be a good president.... 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.”

In his senate office, surrounded by pictures of his late wife, Biden launched into a three-hour reminiscence.  He 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.

Just too perfect.

“My wife was the brains behind my campaign. I would never have made it here without her. She was absolutely brilliant.  *I’m smart* but Neilia was ten times smarter.  She always knew the right thing to do.

“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 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.

“I have no illusions about why I am such a hot commodity, either. I am the youngest man in the Senate and I am also the victim of a tragic fate which makes me very newsworthy. I’m sure that’s why I get so many invitations all the time. I don’t accept them and most people understand why.

Rose Kennedy is always calling me to come to dinner. She has invited me at least ten times and I’ve only gone once. Most guys would kill to get invitations like that but I don’t accept them because I like to be with my children as much as possible. Whenever Ted and Joan Kennedy call me for dinner—and they call quite a bit—I usually say I have to go home.”

It's not unusual to see two little blondes streaking through Biden’s reception room. Both seem adjusted to the loss of their mother. Beau, now five, explains: “My father works in his office with the Senators and my mother is in heaven.”

Just. Too. Perfect.

Named one of the ten best-dressed men in the Senate, Joe Biden looks like Robert Redford’s Great Gatsby in natty pin-striped suits, elegant silk ties and black tassled loafers. He dresses rich. “I’m a suit-and-tie kind of guy,” he says. “I’ve been this way all my life. I even wore a tie in college.  My wife  would buy a lot of my clothes, which is probably the only reason I look so good.”

He looks like a Senator—complete with receding hairline. He has immense self-confidence. He doesn’t smoke or drink.  “I'm proud to be a politician," he says. "There is no other walk of life which can do more good for mankind than politics."

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 politicians can take away that First Amendment of yours if we want to.”

He's saying this in 1974.

"At first my dad tried to talk me into running for governor but I told him I didn’t want to be a damn old administrator. I wanted to come to Washington and get something accomplished.

When he leaves the senate chamber a young schoolteacher from Georgia grabs him. “Please come and say something to my students,” she begs. “You’re their Jack Kennedy.”

Jack Kennedy, y'say.  Just too perfect.

"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."

A dozen fawning, heavy-breathing 'grafs omitted about joe dating a gal Kelley calls "a pretty 28-year-old version of Natalie Wood."  Perfect.

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.”

The Senator shows a healthy respect for money.

"A healthy respect for money," eh?  You don't say.  You. Don't. Say.

“Politics is expensive. I had one hell of a time trying to raise money as a candidate. I had to put a second mortgage on my house.  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,

Or China?

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 says.

Biden makes no bones about saying he's underpaid. Last year 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.”

“I believe we should strive to reach the point where members of Congress give up all income but their annual salaries, and we can come to that point only when our annual salaries fully reflect the magnitude of our duties and responsibilities.”

[joe's sister, talking about his senate campaign:] When joe could afford professional campaign consultants they wanted to get rid of his wife and kid sister as campaign advisors and throw out the literature filled with family pictures. “They said that people don’t equate strength with a family man,” recalls Valerie.

"Joey didn’t agree. He listened to the pros, and said, 'It’s been nice talking to you and I’ll see that someone gets you to the airport on time.' He refused to change his style. “I am a family man, and I’d rather lose with my family than win without them.”

Just. Too. Perfect.

In spite of the endorsements his popular Republican opponent received from President Nixon, Governor Nelson Rockefeller and Senator Charles Mathias, biden--"the family man"--had won...by 2,300 votes.

Months later when Biden attended a dinner for the defeated senator he said, “I hope I will live to have what Caleb Boggs has tonight—an unblemished reputation for integrity.”

 Unbelievably.  Perfect.

Joe Biden reeks of decency.

 Need we say it again?

"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.  I’m a liberal on health care because I believe it is a birth right of every human being.  

"But when it comes to issues like abortion, amnesty [for draft dodgers], and acid [LSD, the popular drug of 1974], I’m about as liberal as your grandmother.  I don’t think a woman has the sole right to say what should happen to her body.

His views...evolved.

"I support the draft. I’m scared to death of a professional army.

Well he's certainly killed that threat, eh?  Preferred pronouns and taxpayer-funded sex change operations.  Wow.

I vote my own way, not always with the Democrats. I did vote for George McGovern, of course, but I would have voted for Mickey Mouse against Richard Nixon. I despise that man.”

Senator Biden doesn’t believe issues make much difference in an election—personality and presentation are the key.  "I think issues are merely a vehicle to portray your intellectual capacity to the voters...a vehicle by which voters will determine your honesty.  The central issue of my [senate] campaign was to convince people that I was intelligent and... honest.

“If we assume I am a candidate for President and you are deciding whether or not to work for me, I could stay here all night answering your questions about how I stand on the issues. But the fact remains that you will not have raised the issues which will be the ones I will be dealing with in my last year as President.”

The talk was theoretical, but no one in that audience doubted that Senator Biden would be coming back to them in a few years as a Presidential contender.

“He really put on quite a show,” said one man after a speech. “He won the audience over by being so open. I’m not sure he doesn’t use candor as a calculated device. It’s probably more deliberate than spontaneous, but it works.  His performance is so professionally orchestrated it seems natural and sincere. He knows he looks good and he knows he sounds good, and I must admit, compared to the rest of those tired old hacks on Capitol Hill, he is the best and brightest hope we have right now. I’d vote for him for President.”

Too. Impossibly. Perfect.

His sister Valerie says we will all get that chance one of these days. “Joey is going to be President someday. He was made to be in the White House. There is no one else who can lead the country. Just you wait and see.” She believes her brother is another John F. Kennedy, and she’s not alone.

Even before his election Time magazine compared Joe Biden and his beautiful young family to the Kennedys and talked about Presidential possibilities some day. The Irish Catholic similarities were obvious. Both campaigned with glamor. Both were sexy. Both were elected to Congress before the age of 30. And both were struck by tragedy.

Some veteran political reporters believe that Joe Biden is much more determined to be President than Jack Kennedy ever was at 31. “Biden knows what he’s doing and where he’s going,” said one. “Kennedy pussyfooted around at that age. I much prefer the Biden style to that JFK cat-and-mouse game.”

Most journalists I talked with agreed that Joe Biden would run for President some day. One said, “I think he might win someday.”

Senator Biden does not dismiss the subject. “Let’s wait and see,” he says. “Talk to me in a few years when I’ll be old enough to run. Right now I’m too young. I’m probably the only Senator you can really believe when he says he’s not planning on running for President, at least not in 1976.”

Astonishing.  1974.  Fawning reporter.  Fawning Time Magazine.  The Democrat/Media party was grooming the talentless, lying, self-absorbed Goodfella for prezzy way back then. 

Source.

https://www.washingtonian.com/1974/06/01/joe-biden-kitty-kelley-1974-profile-death-and-the-all-american-boy/