On December 18, 1972, Joe Biden’s wife and one-year-old daughter were killed in an automobile accident while Christmas shopping in Hockessin, Delaware. Neilia Biden’s station wagon was hit by a tractor-trailer as she pulled out from an intersection; the truck driver was cleared of any wrongdoing. Biden’s two sons, Beau and Hunter, were critically injured in the accident, but both eventually made full recoveries. Biden considered resigning to care for them; he was persuaded not to by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield and others and was sworn in to office from one of their bedsides. The accident left Biden filled with both anger and religious doubt: “I liked to [walk around seedy neighborhoods] at night when I thought there was a better chance of finding a fight … I had not known I was capable of such rage … I felt God had played a horrible trick on me.”
To be at home every day for his young sons, Biden began the practice of commuting every day by Amtrak train for 1½ hours each way from his home in the Wilmington suburbs to Washington, D.C., which he continued to do throughout his Senate career. In the aftermath of the accident, he had trouble focusing on work, and appeared to just go through the motions of being a senator. In his memoirs, Biden notes that staffers were taking bets on how long he would last. A single father for five years, Biden left standing orders that he be interrupted in the Senate at any time if his sons called. In remembrance of his wife and daughter, Biden does not work on December 18, the anniversary of the accident.
Here is a clip I created of Ryan’s comment and Biden’s response.
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/clip/4031874
And Joe talking about the tragedy, feeling suicidal thoughts, and making it through.
I am really appalled at this. I don’t see how this wasn’t a deliberate bit of strategy to rattle Biden and that is so beyond disgusting. The anecdote was totally out of left field. Ryan is asked about struggling families and he brings an 18 year old story about a car crash? What? Is that the Romney/Ryan economic plan? Hope you attend the same church as Mitt Romney so he can use his cartoonish wealth to support you in a difficult time? Its such a brazen dirty trick and I’m also, frankly, annoyed at how little its being discussed. The media’s dedication to upholding the pretense of dirty tricks like this seems to know no bounds.