Joe Biden carries both of his sons, Joseph, left, and Robert during an appearance at the Democratic state convention in June 1972. At center is his wife Neilia Biden, who was killed in an auto crash, Dec. 20, 1972. With them are Gov.-elect Sherman W. Tribbitt and his wife, Jeanne. (AP Photo, File)
By Amy V. Simmons
Loyal — to a fault.
Of the many words that describe President Joe Biden throughout his career, that is the one that encapsulates his life and mission as a public servant — a well-liked, bipartisan deal-maker and international diplomat.
Loyal also describes Biden’s private persona as the neighbor who over the years could also be seen speaking with Delawareans who were unhoused, slipping them cash and his personal phone number, chatting with fellow Amtrak passengers while commuting daily to Capital Hill, taking constituents to lunch, and seeking to find common cause with virtually every human being he has ever encountered — including those he disagreed with.
Everyone who has ever supported Biden — from his early career days in Delaware to his first campaign for the U.S. Senate to last year’s bid for a second presidential term — not only takes pride of place in his memory, but in his heart. He never forgets a kindness extended.
It was loyalty — to a country he loved and a Constitution he revered — that caused him to interrupt a fruitful retirement from government life and try to become the nation’s president for the third time.
“Almost home” — loyalty to the U.S. Senate
Biden’s bonhomie amongst his former colleagues — regardless of party or political stance — is legendary.
Four-year-old Beau Biden, in foreground, plays near his father, Joe Biden, center, being sworn in as the U.S. senator from Delaware, by Senate Secretary Frank Valeo, left, in ceremonies in a Wilmington hospital Jan. 5, 1973. Beau was injured in an accident that killed his mother and sister in December 1972. Biden’s father-in-law, Robert Hunter, holds the Bible. (AP Photo/File)
This began early in his career, when the late Ernest Frederick “Fritz” Hollings — former Democratic senator and governor of South Carolina — supported the young, unknown candidate during Biden’s first run for the U.S. Senate. Although it may have been a seemingly unlikely pairing, it worked. As a result, South Carolina and its residents have always been special to Biden. The two men remained close for the rest of Hollings’s life.
Before the more recent deterioration of their friendship, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham — who succeeded the controversial Strom Thurmond, someone else who Biden was able to bridge gaps with — stated in 2015 that, “The bottom line is, if you can’t admire Joe Biden as a person, you got a problem. You need to do some self-evaluation, cause what’s not to like… He’s the nicest person I think I’ve ever met in politics.”
If there is nothing else that the record needs to show when it comes down to Joe Biden’s legacy, is his love for the U.S. Senate, and his passion for serving in Congress.
As Biden welcomed newly elected Democratic Congress members at a special reception on January 5, he reminisced about his 36-year career as a senator and offered both his observations and advice.
“Embrace the institution you serve,” Biden said. “Improve it. Do not tear it down.”
Loyalty to civil and human rights
Biden has tried to champion the rights of the downtrodden, the working and middle-class communities, and those facing discrimination. It began when he briefly took on the role of public defender in Delaware, a decision he made in light of the late 60s civil unrest.
Although he did not hold that position for long, it established Biden as an advocate for those who needed that advocacy when they needed it most but could afford it the least, eventually launching him into the world of Democratic politics.
One of Biden’s longtime friends, Delaware NAACP activist Richard “Mouse” Smith, spoke about this period in a 2019 Buzzfeed story: “He would take the case for Black folks, for poor whites. He was a hero to the Black community when it came to the public defender.”
Then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) tells the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Secretary of State George Shultz that U.S. policy toward South Africa amounted to a shameful lack of backbone, July 23, 1986, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
That said, throughout his career, Biden’s motives sometimes were called into question, such as when he announced his opposition to school busing in Delaware in 1975 — a controversial position held by many, even some in Black communities in the region and other cities throughout the country at the time.
Despite clarifying his reasons on several occasions, the unintended legacy of Biden’s busing position exacerbated segregationist practices. It even created great tension between then-Sen. Kamala Harris, one of his rivals in the 2020 primary, and himself when the subject was raised during a debate.
Another time when Biden’s intentions regarding people of color — in particular, those not unlike those who he had advocated for as a public defender — were called into question was in 1993 after he took to the Senate floor on November 18 to advocate for the Crime Bill using incendiary rhetoric and imagery that many considered racist, even though he tried to equivocate his stance during his speech.
It was the “tough on crime” stance of most lawmakers at the time — at the height of the crack epidemic — regardless of party. He was not alone in his support of the bill, and frankly, in his fear of not addressing the crime problem aggressively. Yet, many still bristled at Biden’s words.
And although he never came out and said it, everyone who heard it knew exactly what picture the senator was trying to paint — equivocations or not:
“They must be taken off the street,” Biden said. “That’s number one. There’s a consensus on that, unless we do something about that cadre of young people, 10s of 1000s of them born out of wedlock, without parents, without supervision, without any structure, without any conscience developing because they literally have not been socialized. … we have predators on our streets that society has, in fact, in part, because of its neglect, created again. It does not mean, because we created them, that we somehow forgive them or do not take them out of society to protect my family and yours from them. They are beyond the pale.”
And yet, there have been many instances of Biden’s support of the African American community — and of civil rights causes around the world, such as his famous impassioned speech in July,1986 in opposition to apartheid practices in South Africa during the 1980s, and his signing of H.R. 55 — the Emmitt Till Anti- Lynching Act — into law in 2022, making lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in American history.
A man of his word — to his credit, but sometimes to his detriment
Biden often adds two phrases at the end of a statement or remark, especially when he is making a specific point: “no joke” and “not hyperbole.”
In some instances, as a senator and presidential candidate — like during his remarks during the Crime Bill debate — hyperbole has definitely been part of the equation.
Biden’s tendency to shoot from the hip when making statements to the press — with whom he has always had a love-hate relationship — and go on the defensive when trying to drive home a point has created a darker side to his legacy.
A quote from a TIME magazine story about Biden’s first failed presidential run in 1987 summed it up in a nutshell: “Biden’s mouth is both his greatest asset and his greatest liability,” Barrett wrote shortly after Biden announced his candidacy.”
A speech in which Biden quoted UK Labour Leader Neil Kinnock without attribution, exaggerations about his academic record — which also included some cases of backlash from unattributed remarks — and a combative press conference in an attempt to clear it all up, tanked the campaign, which ended a mere three months after it began.
That same year, when he was 45 years old and at the zenith of his career as chairman of the prestigious Senate Judicial Committee, Biden suffered two life-threatening aneurysms. Both were addressed in delicate surgical procedures that do not always have a good outcome. Yet, he came through.
The experience set the tone for the rest of his life, he later wrote in his book, “Promises to Keep.” Everything that mattered most was brought into proportion.
“That last year had taught me one big lesson: The only things that are truly urgent are matters of life and death,” Biden wrote. “I was no less committed or passionate, but I no longer felt I had to win every moment to succeed.”
Another memorable time when Biden’s sometimes ham-handed style of interrogation raised many eyebrows occurred during his questioning of Anita Hill during the confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991.
There were many missteps during the hearings — comprised of an all-white, male panel — that ended up calling Hill’s testimony into question, especially from Republican members. Biden later regretted not pushing back on all of it as committee chairman. Although he was trying to respect the process, it put Biden in a bind, something he spoke about at length in a June 1992 Washington Post story.
As seen through a window from the Colonnade outside the Oval Office, President Joe Biden speaks during his farewell address at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2025, as second gentleman Doug Emhoff, Vice President Kamala Harris and first lady Jill Biden listen. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
“What they [the Republicans] do is they put you in a position on so many matters of principle that in order to fight with them and have a chance of winning, you have to either have the ability to go right above the issue, or you’ve got to do it the way they do it and disregard the rules,” Biden said during the interview.
In 2019, when actively pursuing the White House, the subject of Biden’s responsibility for how those hearings were conducted came up on more than one occasion. Although he tended to maintain that he always believed Hill, and that it was his colleagues who were to blame, Biden eventually took personal responsibility for the part he played as chairman.
In the wake of his hesitation to support Hill during the hearings — he ultimately voted against the Thomas appointment — Biden fully supported the 1994 Violence Against Women Act.
A preferred eulogist
Despite his gaffe tendencies and lifelong stutter, Biden — a true empath and “people person” with a gift for storytelling — has been approached to deliver many eulogies and tributes to friends and adversaries alike.
The tributes are eloquent, respectful, and sincere, often including a humorous anecdote or two.
When Biden eulogized his former Senate colleague, Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey, in 2013, he quipped that there are consequences to performing well during the special honor.
“I advise you all — never make a good eulogy,” Biden said at the time. “You’ll be asked again and again and again.”
While it is a tendency not often found in the political sphere these days, Biden’s ability to sum up someone’s life and focus on their core values is still valued by many.
At such moments, Biden’s tendencies to pour out his heart — he often chokes back tears — and to focus on the positive rather than the negative serves him well.
“My name’s Joe Biden. I’m a Democrat, and I loved John McCain,” Biden said at one of the late Arizona senator’s memorial services in 2018.
And he did — as he did many political adversaries who were also friends. They knew this — which is why many have approached about delivering the eulogy at their funerals or memorial services before their death. So did those with whom he rarely disagreed.
President Jimmy Carter, who died on December 29 at the age of 100, was one of those who asked. The two men knew each other since 1974.
In his eulogies, Biden often remarks that even as older generations die and become part of the ages, the good they achieved remains relevant.
“And today, many think he was from a bygone era. But in reality, he saw well into the future,” Biden said of Carter in the eulogy he delivered on January 9. “[He was] a white Southern Baptist who led on civil rights. A decorated Navy veteran who brokered peace. A brilliant nuclear engineer who led on nuclear nonproliferation. A hardworking farmer who championed conservation and clean energy. And a president who redefined the relationship with the vice president.”
A lifelong respect for the Kennedy family
Although at least 23 US presidents share some aspect of Irish lineage, when Sen. John F. Kennedy’s election as the first Irish Catholic president in November 1960, it caused great pride among Irish Catholics, regardless of their party affiliation.
This especially rang true with Joe Biden, who turned 18 later that month.
The Kennedy family has been an inspiration to him ever since, so it is not surprising that he has such a long history with them, from his time as Ted Kennedy’s aide at the start of his career to the present.
The feeling of loyalty is mutual, apparent when amidst the political firestorm that led him to leave the race, a number of Kennedy family members — including descendants of Biden’s personal hero, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. — announced their endorsement of Biden’s second run last summer.
Two of his final acts as president also involved RFK, Sr. family members — the presentation of the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously to the late senator and attorney general (Kennedy’s daughter, Kerry, accepted the award on her father’s behalf) and his heartfelt tribute to Kennedy’s widow Ethel after her death on October 10, 2024, at the age of 96.
During his October 16 eulogy, Biden recalled how Ethel Kennedy was one of the key people who encouraged him at during one of the most devastating and challenging events of his life — the death of his first wife and daughter in 1972 from a tragic accident that weeks before taking office.
“I was in her brother-in-law’s office — Teddy’s office — hiring staff. I was only 29 — you had to be 30 years old to be sworn in, and I wasn’t 30 yet — when I got a phone call from the fire department by my house saying there had been an accident,” Biden said. “A tractor-trailer had broadsided my wife’s automobile, Christmas shopping with a Christmas tree on top, on December 18, and killed my wife and killed my daughter, and my boys weren’t expected to live.
When I lost my family — and she was there.”
Kennedy hosted Biden and his surviving family at her home, where she and brother-in-law Teddy encouraged the grieving young father not to give up his Senate seat, he recalled.
Biden also spoke about how Ethel Kennedy was also there to support him after son Beau’s death in 2015. As he took his seat after delivering his remarks, a visibly moved Biden was comforted by former President Barack Obama, who put his arm around him.
“America, America, I gave my best to you”: An abiding faith in God, family and the American people
A devout Catholic who rarely misses Mass, Biden has drawn strength from his beliefs…and direction.
In almost every speech, public remark, or statement released by Biden, he mentions his immediate family — especially his parents, grandparents, and son Beau.
They are forever a part of his life, and he has ensured that people understand this. Throughout his public life, he has repeated many family anecdotes and quotes countless times — to know Joe Biden, is to know who he loves.
There is a certain poignancy that his third quest for the presidency was successful only after he retired from public life a few years earlier, still grieving his beloved son.
Yet in so many ways, all of the trials, tribulations, and missteps of a 50+ year career — as well as his many successes — prepared him for that final opportunity to prove his commitment to a country he loved.
Despite his advanced age and what many considered anachronistic, naive, and nostalgic sensibilities, Biden led one of the most successful presidential administrations in history.
Yet, that same commitment to the nation led Biden to relinquish his campaign for a second term — even though he believed he could have won and had a bench in place to take over if necessary. That bench included Vice President Kamala Harris, who he endorsed immediately.
The administration has also been subject to a mainstream and social media firestorm that preceded that decision and has continued.
Yet, ever reflective, Biden — who has often said that he is a great believer in fate — has owned up to his failings and successes and is committed to resuming his active retirement with the same enthusiasm and optimism as he did the first time in 2017.
Yet, as he prepared to leave a public service career of over 50 years, Biden felt compelled to include several warnings in his farewell address to the nation on January 15. Not one to overdramatize, but like the speech he gave outside of Independence Hall several years ago, Biden’s tone was ominous as he expressed his concerns about a growing American oligarchy and unbridled technology. Yet, he felt compelled to look toward the future and leave to ball in the nation’s court as they confront these realities in the years ahead.
Despite everything, it is still a nation that he loves, believes in — and remains loyal to.
“Now it’s your turn to stand guard,” Biden said at the end of his address, delivered from the Oval Office. “May you all be the keeper of the flame. May you keep the faith.”
Time will tell.
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