Ron,
I feel an obligation to honesty and truth to share with you some facts. My Father and Mother instilled in me the values and morals of treating people fairly and always being honest. If you purchase something, you pay for it. If you borrow something, you give it back.
I have been "stiffed" three times in my 30 year professional career by someone who I rendered services to, gave a finished product to, but who refused to pay for those services even though they acknowledged the services and products were correct, were what they asked for, and were never challenged for not being correct. I am lucky in having only three, but those three hurt badly.
Joe Biden was one of those people. I worked on his 1988 Presidential campaign financial disclosure engagement. I busted it for him and got everything right. He stiffed me for over $15,000 worth of work. He refused to pay once he dropped out of the race. I did similar Capitol Hill campaign financial disclosure work for Bob Dole, Pat Buchanan, and a Democratic candidate for Ambassador to New Zealand. All of those folks paid even though they lost the election or did not get the appointment. That type of work is very demanding and very tedious because your efforts are scrutinized by Congress. Biden did not care.
I am on the Board of Directors of a company that owns a majority position in a private jet management company in Northern Virginia. They manage jets for businesses and rich folks. They also charter planes to the public. This past winter John Thompson chartered over $250,000 worth of air time. He paid every penny.
Joe Biden, in his latest unsuccessful run for President, chartered over $150,000 worth of air time. He PAID ZERO. He continues to refuse to pay stating his race is over and he is out of money. He never once complained about his flights. Joe Biden is a rich man. He could pay.
Joe Biden is a liar and a cheat. I know it first hand. Character is what life is all about. Joe Biden is a man of bad character and sets a bad example for America.
I feel compelled to share this dark side of a man who asks for your vote and trust.
Best Regards,
Bruce D. Riddle, CPA, CFP
BDR Associates, LLC
2401 Research Boulevard, Suite 101
Rockville, MD 20850
Work - (240) 631-1981
Cell - (301) 580-7800
Fax - (240) 631-2778
Website - www.bdrtax.com
August 31, 2008
Joe Biden's Mythical Blue-Collar Roots
Joe Biden once got in trouble for plagiarizing a speech and inflating his academic record. So it will not surprise you to find that his famous working-class background turns out to be mythical. But it may surprise you to learn that Biden isn't the one who has trouble with the facts.
In his Wednesday night speech at the Democratic convention, Biden referred to "those of us who grew up in middle-class neighborhoods like Scranton and Wilmington." In the video preceding his address, he said that the people he knew as a boy didn't regard themselves as working class but as middle class.
So what did the news media report? "Sen. Joseph R. Biden accepted the vice presidential nomination of the Democratic Party with a speech that harkened back to his working-class roots in Scranton," said The Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal informed readers that "Sen. Joe Biden showcased his working-class upbringing." The New York Times said he "spoke frequently, and earnestly, of his blue-collar background."
No, he didn't. In fact, he did just the opposite. Anyone paying attention would have noticed as much. But the legend of Joe Biden, born in a welding shop, dies hard with political reporters, who find it easier to romanticize a gritty, hardscrabble childhood than a conventionally comfortable one.
The facts are there for anyone who wants to look at them. When Joe Biden Sr. died in 2002, his obituary in the News-Journal of Wilmington reported that when he married in 1941, "he was working as a sales representative for Amoco Oil Co. in Harrisburg."
It went on, "Biden also was an executive in a Boston-based company that supplied waterproof sealant for U.S. merchant marine ships built during World War II. After the war, he co-owned an airport and crop-dusting service on Long Island." Upon moving his family to Delaware, the News-Journal said, Biden "worked in the state first as a sales manager for auto dealerships and later in real-estate condominium sales."
Executive, co-owner and manager? Those titles identify the jobholder as solidly middle class, if not better. They fall in the category of white-collar occupations, not blue-collar.
And Biden Sr. clearly knew the difference. In his book, "Promises to Keep," Biden writes that his father was "the most elegantly dressed, perfectly manicured, perfectly tailored car sales manager Wilmington, Del., had ever seen."
Biden notes that he himself could have gone to the best public high school in Delaware. Instead, he enrolled at Archmere Academy, a Catholic prep school that made him think he had "died and gone to Yale." He took a summer job to help pay the steep tuition, which today amounts to $18,450 a year.
That doesn't mean the Bidens never had financial trouble. Biden says they had to move in with his mother's parents after one setback, and he remembers "when the electric company would send a collector to the house."
For nearly a year, the father was reduced to cleaning boilers for a heating company. But middle-class people are not immune to unemployment and bad business deals, and the Bidens regained their footing before long.
So where did he get his working-class reputation? Partly it comes from Biden's streetwise demeanor and his preoccupation with the fact that his family wasn't as well-off as some of the people he knew -- which seems to have given him a permanent chip on his shoulder. Partly it comes from his frequent tributes to blue-collar folks, such as the firefighters who took him to the hospital when he suffered an aneurysm.
But mostly it reflects journalists' weakness for simple, vivid narratives. It's easy to write about a statesman who worked his way up from a log cabin. It's easy to write about a leader who came from great wealth. But someone growing up the son of a sales manager is a bit lacking in color and drama.
The errors about Biden bring to mind the recent satirical report from humorist Andy Borowitz: "A member of the U.S. Olympic diving team was disqualified from competition today when it was learned that he did not have a sufficiently compelling human story line to exploit on the NBC telecast of the worldwide sporting event."
Biden just didn't have a sufficiently compelling human story line for a presidential campaign. Luckily, he does now.
Copyright 2008, Creators Syndicate Inc.
Aug 31, 08:39 AM |
baracknaphobia Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, when the likes of screeching Paul Begalia talk
> about McCain's skin cancer etc. in the context of
> Sarah Palin being a 'heartbeat' away from the
> presidency, he can perhaps, finally channel the
> sentiment of my recent trip to Ross to buy more
> covers in the event that Obama is elected. But
> even better than that, we can now respond with a
> mention that Biden may well drop dead from another
> aneurism leaving us with no president, vice or
> otherwise.
Actually the chances of Biden having another aneurism are probably less than McCain having one since they would have checked to make sure no other weaknesses existed.
Aug 31, 08:36 AM |
Typical White Supremacist...Biden, Kennedy, Clinton...and all the way back to Franklin D. Roosevelt, the guy that made all Blacks legal minorities.
Aug 31, 08:36 AM |
So, when the likes of screeching Paul Begalia talk about McCain's skin cancer etc. in the context of Sarah Palin being a 'heartbeat' away from the presidency, he can perhaps, finally channel the sentiment of my recent trip to Ross to buy more covers in the event that Obama is elected. But even better than that, we can now respond with a mention that Biden may well drop dead from another aneurism leaving us with no president, vice or otherwise.
Aug 31, 08:28 AM |
How dishonest...the author failed to mention how much ambiguity there is in the terms "working class" and "middle class".
Instead, the author presents those categories as clearly defined, such that what one person considers "working class", everyone considers "working class", and what one person considers "middle class", everyone considers "middle class".
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