Brian Taff on Joe Biden

Mr. Taff is a late afternoon news anchor for Action News on Ch. 6. He often writes very eloquently written blogs that he posts to his Facebook page. On this occasion, he has written about Vice President Biden, and I want to share it with you:

I’ll never forget the moment. It was a steamy summer night in Denver, Colorado, moments before Joe Biden took the stage during the Democratic National Convention in 2008. I was hustling to get back to my broadcast perch, but got stuck in one of the occasional lockdowns that accompany the movement of high profile people in the building — like the soon-to-be-Vice-President-of-the-United-States. Somehow, I ended up standing in a doorway about 15 feet from Joe, with an unobstructed view as he collected his thoughts leading up to what was then the biggest speech he’d ever given. He struck me as, and I’m not sure how else to put it: human. That now-famous Biden smile never left his face — but it was more than apparent that his ear-to-ear grin was only a mask, an attempt to underplay the huge amount of nervous energy coursing through him. Seconds later, he brushed off any last minute doubts, and delivered a speech that served as an exclamation point to a childhood spent overcoming a stutter and an adulthood spent trying to overcome unimaginable loss. When he was done, the thunderous applause shook the arena and sent the faithful voters that filled it to their feet.

And that, I think, is why Joe Biden holds a particularly unique place on the American stage — and in its heart. He is not the straight-from-central-casting-politican. He is, well, human. The Every Man who somehow penetrated the world’s most powerful bubble, and makes you nervous that he may innocently break a vase while there. And yet his demeanor conveys the message that he’s OK with that — that its OK to laugh with him, and yes, sometimes at him. He is, in a word, likable. There is no higher currency in politics than that. And Joe Biden has it in spades.

In America, we don’t often elect human beings. We elect those to whom we artificially assign super-human powers — people who, through advertising or image management — convince us that they are The Answer For The Moment. Maybe that’s why, if polls are true, people never really give Joe Biden much thought when it comes to the one office higher than the one he now holds. Maybe our image of him is just “too human.” In this time of immeasurable suffering, though, I hope he can take that as more than a small measure of comfort. No matter what you think of his politics — Joe Biden is a guy you’d like to have as a friend–and there is no more noble title than that in life. Right now, the whole country is wrapping its collective arms around a friend who is, once again, in an unfair and unfathomable amount of pain. I pray that one day soon, as he has somehow done before, Joe Biden will rise above the dark clouds of loss, and find the joy behind that high-beam smile. That smile no doubt lit the world for his late, and every bit as likable son, Beau. Whether Joe knows it or not, it has also illuminated the path for countless others. Now, as friends, it falls to us to light the path for him.

Piers Morgan wrote yesterday on that horrible British tabloid, the Daily Mail, that Beau Biden was the best President we will never have. I think Brian and I believe his father was.