As a child, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. wrestled with words, grappling with a boyhood stutter. Years later, as a young politician, he could not stop saying them, quickly developing a reputation for long-winded remarks
President Joe Biden waves after being sworn in during his inauguration on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2021 in Washington, DC. During today's inauguration ceremony Biden becomes the 46th President of the United States; Image: Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Images
As a child, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. wrestled with words, grappling with a boyhood stutter. Years later, as a young politician, he could not stop saying them, quickly developing a reputation for long-winded remarks.
It was words that undercut his first two campaigns for the White House, with charges of plagiarism ending his 1988 bid and verbal missteps that hampered his 2008 outing from nearly the first moments. And it was his self-described penchant for being a “gaffe machine,” as he once put it, that would cement his vice presidential nickname of “Uncle Joe,” the endearing relative who prompts the occasional wince.
Through a nearly half-centurylong political career marked by personal tragedy and forged in national upheaval, Biden’s struggle with his own words has remained a central fact of his professional life and of the ambition he harbored for nearly as long: the White House.
Yet over the course of the 2020 campaign and especially in the two months since his victory, Biden, the nation’s 46th president, has transformed himself into a steady hand who chooses words with extraordinary restraint.
The self-described “scrappy kid from Scranton,” Pennsylvania, who called former President Donald Trump a “clown” and told him to “shut up” during their first debate, refused to take the political bait laid by Trump for weeks after the election with his attempts to overturn the results. Rather than get sucked into the Trumpian chaos, Biden focused on announcing his Cabinet and helping his party win two runoff races in Georgia. And with a second impeachment trial looming in the Senate, Biden, 78, has maintained his steadfast faith in the political center, positioning himself as a champion of all Americans and a deal-maker between the left and the right.
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