Talk:Joe Biden/Archive 5

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Federal Election Commission fine needs to be added to the 2008 campaign section.

Add the following: On July 17, 2010, the Federal Election Commission fined the Biden Campaign $219,000 for campaign finance violations. http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/07/17/biden.campaign.fine/index.html?hpt=T1

The Biden campaign says it is commonplace but a google search reveals this is political spin. Other campaigns have been fined but usually not so much. Hillary Clinton got a $35,000 fine but that was considered big. Some cases, the FEC doesn't even bother with. http://www.fec.gov/press/press2006/20060126mur.html

Biden supporters should not claim that this bad news should not be here by using a lot of excuses. One sentence will not overwhelm the article. This is missing (talk) 23:41, 17 July 2010 (UTC)

I've added a paragraph on this to Joe Biden presidential campaign, 2008#Aftermath. I'm on the fence about whether a sentence on this belongs in the Biden main article or not. It's not insignificant, but it's also true that most campaigns do run into issues in their FEC audits. Let's see what others have to say here and also see if there's much additional news coverage about it. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:51, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Standout Athlete Suddenly Has Asthma When Facing the Draft?

The article contains no discussion of the question why such a standout athlete would suddenly suffer asthma symptoms when faced with the prospect of being drafted and sent to Vietnam. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.44.149.170 (talk) 04:21, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed here several times in the past, including at least three discussions in Talk:Joe Biden/Archive 4. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:18, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

Reference this entry under the “Early life and education” section: “Biden received five student draft deferments during this period, with the first coming in late 1963 and the last in early 1968, at the peak of the Vietnam War.[16] In April 1968, he was reclassified by the Selective Service System as not available for service due to having had asthma as a teenager.[16]”

I it is alledged on various Internet sources that the reason Biden did not release his full medical records during the campaign was they would reveal the extent to which he went to avoid military induction once he received his draft notice. Although in his best-selling memoir, “Promises to Keep,” he recounted his active childhood, working as a lifeguard and excelling at high school football, he never mentions asthma. It is also alleged that what actually happened was by the time Biden finally got his draft notice in ‘68, he was already a lawyer so knew how to “manipulate the system.” His asthma was not detected during his draft physical but rather Biden appealed his induction by submitting "documentation" from a “private physician” notorious for “discovering” disqualifying features for well connected patients after they were notified for induction.

If true, Biden makes Bush look like a war hero and it should definitely be included in his bio in the same manner in which their Vietnam-era conduct is discussed in the Bush and Cheney pages — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.169.199.18 (talk) 19:20, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia gives little credence to "various Internet sources"; read WP:Reliable sources for what it does rely upon. And the Internet claim that Biden never mentions having asthma in his autobiography is easily disproven: see page 156 of that book right here. Wasted Time R (talk) 20:30, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

Order

I think the US Senator box should go above all of his Senate Chairmanships and under VP. It just looks better. When people think of him besides VP they think of Senator. Plus it is his longest serving office and arguably more important than Senate Chairmanships. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Politicsislife (talk • contribs) 04:30, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Not done: in my opinion it makes more sense the way it is, being the chair of a Senate committee makes it clear that the person is a senator, and is an additional accomplishment above and beyond being a Senator. Please establish consensus to the contrary if you want the change made. Monty₈₄₅ 15:36, 1 July 2011 (UTC)

Awards

Best Unintentional Singer Autotune the News #8 September 1, 2009

Edit request from Eamonn81, 3 March 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} As Joe Biden's is of Catholic Irish heritage his roots come from county Derry. If he was of Protestant northern Irish or British heritage his roots would have come from county Londonderry.

Eamonn81 (talk) 02:47, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Reaper Eternal (talk) 16:41, 3 March 2011 (UTC)

Per the notice near the top of the Talk:Derry page, this article follows the Wikipedia-wide compromise wherein the city is called Derry and the county is called Londonderry. The reference in the text is to the county, so Londonderry it is. It doesn't depend upon the background of the person being discussed. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:07, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

2012 election

Will Biden become Obamas running mate in 2012 as well or is he going to be replaced as VP if Obama is sucessfull in election? Perhaps some information about this could be added in the article. Jerchel (talk) 18:21, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

That is unknown at this time.--William S. Saturn (talk) 18:31, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Title Under his name

He is listed as the 47th President of The United States (underneath his photograph). He is obviously the 47th Vice-President. This needs to be changed. [07:40, August 4, 2011 70.100.121.98]

Fixed. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:52, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Criticism

Biden has been criticized for being "totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 186.58.181.125 (talk) 16:11, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, well, it worked out kind of differently, didn't it. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:49, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

1988 Primary

Include citation from paraphrased quote to original source. Under Presidential Campaigns -> 1988, change the sentence "It was also revealed that when earlier questioned by a New Hampshire resident ... received three degrees in college." to "Video was released showing that when earlier questioned by a New Hampshire resident ... received three degrees in college.<ref>[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1j0FS0Z6ho C-SPAN video], 1988 Road to the White House with Sen. Biden , via youtube.com</ref>" — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snsh (talk • contribs) 16:43, 4 May 2012 (UTC)

CONTROVERSY PAGE ON JOE BIDEN

JOE SAID FUCK IN THE WHITE HOUSE HOW COME HE DOESNT HAVE A CRITICISM PAGE HES SAID SOME STUPID AND OFFENSIVE THINGS WE NEED TO PUT THEM IN THERE RIGHT? [08:27, May 27, 2012‎ 68.226.116.154]

Special "criticism" or "controversy" pages are frowned upon in the better, GA/FA-level articles. Instead, such matters are included with the proper context in the narrative when and where they happened. This article already includes many things that Biden has said that people consider stupid or offensive. In terms of the particular one you mention, the article already includes:

"On March 23, 2010, a microphone picked up Biden telling the president that his signing of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was "a big fucking deal" during live national news telecasts. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs replied via Twitter "And yes Mr. Vice President, you're right..."[215]"

If you had done a simple browser text search for the word in question, you would have seen this. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:13, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request on 26 October 2012

Fix broken link External links, CongLinks, parameter s/b washpo = gIQAT0JR9O 184.78.81.245 (talk) 02:12, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

Done. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:30, 26 October 2012 (UTC)

i am awesome i love me it is cool joier lhr [jot6suhJddf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.166.38.116 (talk) 01:09, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Biased language in "early life..." section

The narrative of Vice President Biden's years in school are clearly from a right-winger who is more interested in slander than accuracy. Please have this reviewed for obvious bias. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.73.1.89 (talk) 23:40, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

You are mistaken about who wrote the section. If you think anything in the section is factually inaccurate, please say specifically what it is. The main sources used here are mainstream news sources such as C-SPAN, the New York Times, and a book written by a Washington Post writer. Like it or not, Biden's academic record was unimpressive, and it caused him some damage during his 1988 presidential campaign. Biden has significant accomplishments in his life, but his career as a student is not one of them. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:43, 13 November 2012 (UTC)

As noted in the article, it has long been recognized that Biden's strengths are as a practical "street" politician with decades of experience, rather than as an academic theoretcian. --Michael K Smith^Talk 13:53, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Not 'Single', 'Widowed'

There is a sentence that says Joe Biden was a single father for five years. He was never a single father; he was a widowed father.

A single man or woman is a man or woman who has never been married. Likewise, a single mother or a single father is a mother or father who has never been married.

A person who is divorced or widowed is not "single" (except for tax purposes) but "unmarried".

It's an important legal distinction, particularly in real estate documents - especially in community property jurisdictions.

The sentence should be changed from "single father" to "widowed father". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.181.62.103 (talk) 05:33, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

I get the point you're trying to make, but people use "single parent" not to describe marital status per se but to denote that the person is the only one doing child raising, regardless of how that came about. If you look at these Google News Archive searches, newspapers have described Biden as a "single father" a lot of times while they have described him as a "widowed father" only a handful of times. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:53, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Reorganization for better chronology

This article has long had a problem with lack of chronological flow in places. In particular, the 1988 presidential campaign section occurs after his entire Senate career, which means it is woefully out of context. Furthermore, if he runs for president again in 2016, which is quite possible, the current organization would have us put a 2016 presidential campaign section before any of the sections on his vice presidency, which is ridiculous (and if we move the Presidential campaigns sections further down, the 2008 presidential campaign would come after his 2008 vice presidential campaign, which is equally bad).

So I have done a reorganization of the material in the central part of the article to be more chronological. The presidential/vice presidential campaigns that occur during his Senate career are presented as subsections to it. (This approach has worked well in articles like Ted Kennedy and George McGovern.) To make it easier to follow, this big edit that does the reshuffling does not add or remove any material at all, just change its location (including putting some really peripheral material into Notes). After that I'll add a couple of things to make the adjusted sections have more thematic coherence. To be sure, the article still isn't fully chronological, but nor should it be - given his long Senate career, some aspects and characteristics of that career are best dealt with grouped together over time. But the biographical flow of the article is a lot better now than it was before. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:55, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Residence

Joe Biden does not live in Wilmington. He lives in Greenville, Delaware. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.171.125.13 (talk) 19:12, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

Caption

Under a photograph of Biden during his senate years, the caption says that the photo was taken in the "late-mid 2000s". Personally, that doesn't make sense to say "late-mid". The photo was taken in 2006. I don't understand why the caption doesn't just say "in the mid 2000s".

Realkeithnagy (talk) 00:51, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I did some digging in archive.org, and the photo first appeared on Biden's Senate web site in December 2006. (I annotated it on Commons accordingly.) It possibly could have been taken earlier than 2006, but probably not. If you want to change the caption, go ahead. Wasted Time R (talk) 03:27, 29 March 2013 (UTC)

Political positions selections

I propose removing the privatization of Social Security, which is no longer a viable political issue, from the "Political positions" section, and replacing it with a new paragraph with one sentence each on Biden's positions on taxation of the wealthy, deficit stimulus spending, infrastructure spending, military spending, student loan forgiveness, the Earned Income Tax Credit, same sex marriage, marijuana legalization, universal health care, renewable energy subsidies, fossil fuel subsidies, campaign finance reform, capital punishment, big bank divestiture ("too big to fail"), and mass transit, which are all more current political issues which readers are far more likely to care about. EllenCT (talk) 20:55, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

I would favor removing all specific issue positions from the "Political positions" section, and let just the ratings remain. The specifics ones can be handled by the Political positions of Joe Biden subarticle, and for ones that are really important (such as NAFTA) we can also put them into the appropriate historical section in this article. This is because his positions are either old or not his own – meaning from August 2008 on, he's pretty much had to mirror Obama's positions on everything. That's going to continue for four more years, unless and until he actually starts running for president. At that point he may distance himself a bit from Obama (like Gore did from Clinton in 2000, or GHWB from Reagan in 1988) and his positions will become relevant again. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:27, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Actually Biden hasn't mirrored Obama, most notably on same-sex marriage, which he has been for since at least 2007, with a few instances of directly contradicting the administration on the topic. There have been a few other instances where the press has suggested that Biden has floated trial positions as a feeler, enabled by his reputation for speaking off the cuff. So I think his specific positions on current issues are likely to remain interesting to readers in their own right. EllenCT (talk) 07:57, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

Same-sex marriage, the surge in Afghanistan, and to an extent the bin Laden raid, are the issues where it's well-documented that Biden substantially differed from Obama or was out ahead of him. But the "Vice Presidency" section in this article already covers each of these, so to include them again in "Political positions" would be redundant. What other issue differences do you have in mind? The off-the-cuff speaking that you acknowledge means that it's hard to deal with his views in just the one sentence each that you propose, since it's not always clear if a statement of his is intentional or not. That's part of the reason why "Political positions of X" articles were created, so that positions could be described in detail, with nuanced stances, evolution over time, contradictions, etc all incorporated. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:55, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree it's not a good idea to duplicate positions covered elsewhere in this article. But the main reason readers are going to be looking here isn't his Senate achievements or the names of his kids. He's the politician with currently the best shot at the 2016 presidency and he's already stumping for 2014 congressional races. By far the main reason people are going to be reading this article is because they want to know what he stands for, so we should make some effort to tell them on the most engaging current issues (not counting abstract non-controversial generalities like "jobs".) At Talk:Political positions of Joe Biden#Current political positions workshop I've collected reasonably current positions on all but two or three of those 15 issues. There is enough substantial documented material from prepared speeches and debates, not just off-the-cuff press opportunity questions, that we should be able to have one sentence listing everything he's recently supported, followed by "He opposes marijuana legalization and prefers reduced military spending." That ads a paragraph, but that seems more like what WP:SUMMARY says: still keep the most important highlights in the main article, but keep them brief. EllenCT (talk) 12:07, 5 April 2013 (UTC)

How is this? The non-ref text is less than half as long as either of the other two paragraphs in the section. I should point out that there appear to be 21 separate organizations listed on [1] who have given Biden a percentage rating score, so it would be far more cumbersome to include those in the existing ratings paragraphs (although, how about a table?) than to select the issues which the current electorate cares most about. EllenCT (talk) 00:13, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I see some good but a lot of problems with what you've added. More later today or tomorrow. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:42, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

I like the idea of using a table for the advocacy group ratings. But:

• You have to use lifetime ratings from each group, not single year ratings. That's because any one year can be an anomaly. For example, your table has the ACLU giving Biden a 60 for 2002, from which you conclude he has a "mixed record". But as the text in this section indicates, he has an 86 percent lifetime score from them, which is a whole different story.
• Yes, using lifetime ratings will be additional effort for you to put together. But Biden was in Congress for 36 years - you simply can't use one year and hope that represents all of them. Many of these organizations have their past ratings available in archives. For example, for the LCV, you go to "Scores" on their website, then "Scorecard Archives", then 2008 (Biden's last year), which gets you to http://scorecard.lcv.org/sites/scorecard.lcv.org/files/LCV_Scorecard_2008.pdf, where page 15 of that says that Biden's lifetime score is 83. Much more accurate than the 95 you showed for 2003 or, say, the 67 that you would have showed if you had picked 2007. And even if an organization's website doesn't contain archives, www.archive.org probably will have past ratings.
• Your descriptions in the "Indicating" column are value-laden and subject to being disagreed to by those on the other side of the issue. For example, opponents of the ACLU will say that organization only focuses on some civil rights and ignores others. Opponents of Americans United will say the description "for church-state separation" is really "for suppression of religious expression in public". The CAF's idea of "energy independence" is a far cry from some other organizations' ideas about how to achieve the same thing. And so forth.
• In some cases, your descriptions are just wrong. The NAACP is involved in a lot more than just affirmative action. The Cato Institute is involved in a lot more than just trade issues.
• I would just drop the descriptions altogether. Let the reader click through to the organization if they don't already know it and decide for themselves what ratings from that group mean. If an organization doesn't have a WP article to click (USBC) then its ratings aren't important enough to include.

I don't like the new paragraph of five-second sound bites on issues, because many of these are far too vague to be useful. To pick six to start out with:

• What does supporting campaign finance reform mean? McCain-Feingold? A constitutional amendment to counteract Citizens United? Something else?
• What does supporting capital punishment mean? Allowing for juveniles? Limiting judicial appeals? Forbidding appeals based upon disproportionate effect?
• What does supporting increased infrastructure spending mean? Every politician supports that, if the project in question is something they approve of. I've never heard anyone say we should stop doing bridge maintenance and let them all fall down.
• What does supporting mass transit mean? Subways in cities? Amtrak subsidies for unprofitable routes? High-speed rail between major cities, and if so, which cities? (According to your source, none of these, it refers to a clean-fuel bus initiative in Maryland, which is kind of underwhelming.)
• What does supporting universal health care mean? Single-payer government? Single-payer public-private? Obamacare with the public option? Obamacare as it is? Broader use of medical savings accounts?
• What does "prefers reduced military spending" mean? Reduced from what year? Reduced against planned spending amounts? against existing amounts allowing for inflation? against actual existing numeric amounts? Does he approve of the defense reductions in the current sequester? Does he want to reduce even more than the sequester does? And what kind of spending does he want to reduce - weapon systems acquisitions, R&D, troop levels, troop deployments, what?

Wikipedia articles on biographical subjects are just that, biographies, not voter guides. It may surprise you but yes, readers really are interested in Biden's youth, and his misadventures in higher education, and the story of his family and the tragedy that befell him, and what he did in his years as a senator, and what he's done as vice president, and his character and nature as a political figure. And yes, when 2016 gets nearer, some readers will want to know candidates' positions on the issues, and for that reason, back in 2006-07 several editors, myself included, starting the "Political positions of X" series of articles, where stated positions could be laid out in better form than 30-second campaign advertisements do or where quick summarization in the main article could do. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:24, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

I will try to compile lifetime ratings. With the clear note that the table doesn't use them, I'm sure it's better than a few days ago when, for example, both this and the political positions sub-article said that Biden had a 100% rating from the AFL-CIO, without saying whether it was lifetime or single-year. Two other ratings here in the main article were similarly unspecified. The indication descriptions are taken from the OnTheIssues.org source, and I agree they can be improved. I will try to do that too. I don't think it's reasonable to expect that readers will know e.g. what "CURE" is without at least a few words of description, or to expect they will reliably click through to find out. Likewise I will try to clarify the political positions, but the general answer to the underlying theme of your questions is that there are plenty of ambiguous details in all parts of the article including the biographical sketch; presumably the readers who want to know more specifics are expected to look at the cited sources. But that doesn't mean I can't make the existing descriptions far less ambiguous.

You might want to compare how many page views the political positions sub-articles get here and for other politicians with their main articles. It's really a tiny fraction. The current level of minutiae for past events is absurd compared to the almost completely elided information specifying politicians' stated future plans and goals inherent in political positions. Do we have any way to tell whether readers really want to see 80 paragraphs on the past but only 2 paragraphs on positions when reading about a politician? Just because summaries are hard isn't a good reason to not try one's best with copious sources instead of punting completely in hopes that the few percent who click through to the sub-articles will bother with the much greater level of detail and minutiae on them. I'm sure that you feel the current state of affairs made it much easier for editors, but that was clearly at the expense of readers who care about what a politician wants to accomplish more than what they already have. The purpose of electing an official is to try to shape the future, not to fete their past. EllenCT (talk) 18:44, 7 April 2013 (UTC)

Most voters understand that talk is cheap and that campaigning politicians will tell voters whatever they think the voters want to hear. The real test comes from what a politician has done when in office, when faced with hard choices, limited resources, and competing political pressures from both allies and opponents. Biden has over 40 years of such a record and it would be foolish to ignore that. As for ambiguities in the biographical sections, please point them out and I'll try to improve them. The article text should be clear without resort to the cited references, so seriously, I would like to hear what isn't clear to you.

Moreover, your five-second blurbs don't tell a reader much of anything about the future, so you aren't really accomplishing your goal. Would a President Biden seek to change current federal law regarding capital punishment? Would a President Biden make climate change legislation a top priority (unlike Obama, who has given it lip service but no political capital)? Would a President Biden seek to change Obamacare to make it more like single-payer? Would a President Biden reduce defense spending in year-over-year amounts? What are the top domestic priorities Biden sees for 2017? What are the top foreign policy priorities Biden sees for 2017? What you wrote doesn't shed any light on any of those questions.

As for readership, these subarticles do better than you think during a campaign. In September 2012 Political positions of Mitt Romney got 130,000 views, in October 230,000 views. That ain't bad! Even today, a Google search for <positions of mitt romney> puts that subarticle first on the results, ahead of several other voter guide sites including ontheissues.org. Same thing with a search for <positions of joe biden> , the Political positions of Joe Biden article comes up first. True, it only got 3,500 views last month, but that's because everyone other than politics junkies are completely exhausted from the last presidential cycle and don't even want to think about the next one. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:58, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

I see your points. Please give me a few days to work on it and let me know if I can't address the largest issues you raised. I've already adjusted the table at Political positions of Joe Biden and after I fill it out and clarify the important positions paragraph, I'll copy them both back here too. EllenCT (talk) 01:37, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Still working on finding lifetime ratings (actually, I've only revformatted the table for them so far.) But I did try to disambiguate the top political positions paragraph. EllenCT (talk) 02:36, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Political positions

This is just fluff. It is also original research in deciding which positions to report. How about his position on Iranian nuclear ambitions? How about his position on polygamy? How about his position on Canada? How about his position on bin Laden?

Better would be a section on how his positions differ from Obama.

Joe Biden's son and Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden shed some light on his VP father's thoughts on making a 2016 run at the presidency.

“It’s no secret that he’s thinking about this,” Beau Biden told the New York Times. “I’m glad he’s thinking about this. But he hasn’t made up his mind.”

http://www.carbonated.tv/news/beau-biden-on-joe-biden-its-no-secret-hes-thinking-about-2016-presidential-race ObamaIsTheGreatest (talk) 23:42, 28 May 2013 (UTC)

If you look at Talk:Joe Biden/Archive 5#Political positions selections, you'll see that I am in favor of eliminating the specific position statements, and just going with the various ratings. I was sort of waiting until User:EllenCT was finished with planned changes, but those never happened and EllenCT got interested in other stuff. So I'm not satisfied with the current state of affairs - even if the specific positions stay, the third paragraph ones have to be weeded for duplicates and merged into the first paragraph. And as for focusing on just the positions that differ with Obama, that would be classic WP:Undue weight, since in practice 90-95% of their positions are the same. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:26, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

What did I forget to do? I like the prose format better than the table, but shouldn't we have both? If you were going to include a subset of positions in a single paragraph, which would you choose? EllenCT (talk) 17:12, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

You still haven't included lifetime ratings in most cases, and are relying on single data points instead. You still haven't resolved meaningless statements like "prefers the reduced military spending proposed in the Administration's budget" (which budget? which administration? he's been around since the time of Nixon). You still haven't pointed out the ambiguities in the biographical sections that you said you had found. Read the most recent Talk archive and you'll see. Wasted Time R (talk) 02:00, 2 June 2013 (UTC)

Ah, I had been having trouble finding those and I still am. I found an About.com report of Biden's lifetime ACLU rating, and it looks like About.com is considered reliable, but I don't know where the corresponding primary source is. Could you please help look for some of these? If you just point me to URLs I'll be happy to add them, but please be patient because I've just started a job and I don't have anywhere near as much time as a couple months ago. I tried to get the ambiguities with the last paragraph changed in this edit, but I will specify the current Administration's proposed budget, too. EllenCT (talk) 03:51, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

You cannot say "the current Administration's proposed budget" because this article has to read correctly not just now, but one, five, ten, twenty years from now. See WP:WTA. You have to say "the Obama Administration's fiscal year 2014 budget" or whatever. I do not see why you added http://nationalpriorities.org/en/analysis/2013/budget-proposals-2014/ as a source since it does not mention Biden once in it. Biden's own positions are not necessarily the administration's, or if you posit that they are, they are not very interesting. As for About.com, if you look at the discussions at WP:RSN (for example from this search there), it's sometimes yes, sometimes no, on a case-by-case basis. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:02, 3 June 2013 (UTC)

I will change the wording as you suggest. The nationalpriorities.org link shows the proposed military cuts. The extent to which any politician's positions are interesting is subjective. I believe you think a politician's personal history is more interesting than their stated positions and their fidelity to positions they have stated in the past. I think the latter is far more interesting and believe that articles on politicians would be improved immensely if they reversed the proportion of text devoted to the two aspects. May I ask your reasons for believing the contrary, if in fact you do? EllenCT (talk) 10:20, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I think the personal political history of political figures is what is important. In other words, what they have done rather than what they say they would do. Most readers understand that talk is cheap and that campaigning politicians will tell voters whatever they think the voters want to hear. The real test comes from what a politician has done when in office, when faced with hard choices, limited resources, and competing political pressures from both allies and opponents. Biden has been in national office for over 40 years now, and the article focuses on what he has done during that period. What he thinks about marijuana laws in 2017 does not seem as important.

In any case, the positions table you added continues to suffer from huge problems with unrepresentative data. For example, you give his NARAL rating as 36% for 2003. Which is true as far as it goes, but if you look at this VoteSmart site, that was just about his lowest rating from them. Other ratings are 75% in 2007, 100% in 2006, 100% in 2005, 100% in 2004, 100% in 2001, 90% in 2000, 46% in 1999, 34% in 1997, and 43% in 1996. So for these ten data points, his average rating is 72%. Kind of a big difference, no? Don't you see why single-year ratings are a problem? Yet you continue to do nothing to improve this table that you added. I get that you don't have much time for this, but what I just did took me all of ten minutes. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:02, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

If politicians always told voters what they thought they wanted to hear, then no politician would ever diverge from opinion polling. (I think that would be a vast improvement over knee-jerk adherence to platforms, pledges, and moral panics, but that's beside the point.) Where is the opportunity in your preferred schema for readers to assess the fidelity of politicians to their promises which won http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/ a Pulitzer? As I said above, if you point me to the sources necessary to improve the table, I'm happy to add them, and I will do so with this one, and use it to look for similar opportunities for improvement. EllenCT (talk) 12:30, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

If there are significant deviations between promises and actions, those are legitimate to include in the biographical narrative. If I were working on the Obama article, for example, I would mention that he fulfilled his campaign vow to pass near-universal health care but not to close Gitmo. In the case of Biden, what promises made but not kept during his senatorial campaigns should be included here? (Vice president doesn't count, because he doesn't have the ultimate decision making power.) As for finding sources, that's the job of the editor adding the material that needs the sources, not the editor pointing out that the addition is lacking. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:44, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

I promise I will improve the table as much as possible with the source you found, but please forgive me if it takes a few days. I'm frustrated with being called a liar on a different topic I am 100% mathematically certain about and have been studying for years. It is clearly raising my blood pressure and I just want to sleep first. EllenCT (talk) 17:46, 16 June 2013 (UTC)

Okay. Alas, it can be an unrewarding experience to work on Wikipedia articles on controversial subjects if you care a lot about the issue and it's even worse if you also know a lot about the issue. Wikipedia doesn't converge to the truth in cases like this, but rather towards mushy compromises, and subject matter expertise rarely counts for much of anything. I've walked away from a few articles where this happened, but in other cases I've stayed in and risked getting agitated. No easy answer ... Wasted Time R (talk) 00:17, 17 June 2013 (UTC)

2012 election results

Raw vote numbers for Biden's electoral history do not match wikipedia page for "United States presidential election, 2012" (citations provided on that page). Currently this page shows 65,899,557 (Biden) vs 60,931,959 (Ryan). Should be 65,915,796 (Biden) vs 60,933,500 (Ryan). Chlimouj (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2013 (UTC)

Done That is a summary of another article and the citation change needed to be done there. I've updated both articles. Thanks, Celestra (talk) 03:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Gates slammed

http://news.yahoo.com/white-house-defends-biden-from-brutal-gates-hit-002831719.html

Are the ex-SOD's comments about Biden notable? Hcobb (talk) 08:22, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Yes, but wait until the dust settles a bit and people have had a chance to actually read Gates' memoir and not just react to a few publicized passages. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:04, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Protection

I think this article needs as much protection as, and a long as, we can handle, because of the recent criticism against the subject from Robert Gates. Any comments? Bearian (talk) 17:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The article is aleady semi-protected, and has been for years. And in fact it is not that busy – for example, before this morning, the article had had no edits for seven weeks. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:34, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Article should include coverage of his comments about the Jews

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

"It wasn’t anything we legislatively did. It was ‘Will and Grace,’ it was the social media. Literally. That’s what changed peoples’ attitudes. That’s why I was so certain that the vast majority of people would embrace and rapidly embrace” gay marriage, Biden said.

“Think behind of all that, I bet you 85 percent of those changes, whether it’s in Hollywood or social media are a consequence of Jewish leaders in the industry. The influence is immense, the influence is immense. And, I might add, it is all to the good.”

A reference to this quote should be included either in this article or if not this one then the "political positions" article.John Martin Walker (talk) 22:25, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

What makes those quotes more noteworthy than anything else he's said? I can't even figure out if you approve or disapprove of his comments, which is actually a good thing, I suppose. EllenCT (talk) 00:19, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

It is an objectively important issue and there was a lot of commentary discussing what he said. Not including this would constitute bias. John Martin Walker (talk) 00:32, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

It doesn't really belong in the political positions article because it's just an observation, not a position. And it doesn't belong here either. Based on accounts like this WaPo one, it was a typical example of a politician speaking at an event oriented towards a particular group - in this case, a Democratic National Committee reception for Jewish American Heritage Month - and singing the praises of that group. And it was a typical example of Biden being Biden (the word "literally" is always a good indication of that), which he does on a regular basis. And the people who seem to think the remarks are really significant are white supremacists, and we don't need to cater to them here. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:39, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia won't let me link, but google can show you a great deal of commentary on what he said from liberal and neocon sources, it is clearly relevant just as his other "gaffes" are relevant. It wasn't just a "typical" example of "a politician" speaking to a group, can you give me any examples of other politicians saying similar things? Biden being Biden? Are you calling him an idiot or something? Not including it constitutes bias. John Martin Walker (talk) 17:14, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

As the article states in at least three different sections, Biden talks all the time, goes off message frequently, often says things that are silly, offensive, wrong, exaggerated, impolitic, etc, and is pretty much a human gaffe machine. But he gets away with it, because that's part of his political persona and it is expected by now. And I disagree that this remark has gotten a lot of coverage - these Google search results quickly get past a few mainstream media reports and start hitting the blogs and the nutjobs. And not including this does not constitute bias, but rather the normal editorial judgement about relative importance regarding what goes in and what goes out that editors of every article on famous people have to exercise all the time. Wasted Time R (talk) 23:33, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

So basically he is an idiot. But you don't want this example of his biggest idiocy ever to be put in the article. Because you are a liberal and don't want to paint a bad picture of a liberal, even if you know it's true. You would never treat a Republican in the same manner. This is just one more example of the left-wing bias of Wikipedia. John Martin Walker (talk) 23:46, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

It's far from his biggest idiocy. That would be 'Obama is the first clean African-American', which blew up his 2008 presidential campaign on its very first day. Or plagiarizing a bunch of public political speeches, which sooner or later is bound to be found out and which blew up his 1988 presidential campaign. Or making stuff up about his academic record, which also helped wreck him in 1988. Or 'Obama will be tested by a foreign power after taking office' during his 2008 vice presidential campaign, which had Obama lamenting, "How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?" All of these and more are in the article. As for your last remark, in my nine years of experience here I have concluded that claims of Wikipedia article political bias almost always tell you more about the claimant than they do about Wikipedia. Wasted Time R (talk) 00:46, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Plagiarizing speeches? Lots of people have done it. The "tested by a foreign power" remark? It makes a certain amount of sense. You could easily imagine a Republican saying it, although it would have been interpreted as an attack. The clean African American gaffe was pretty bad, but it's not like everyone doesn't already know the other candidates were, uh, you know. But the comments about the Jews and their role in promoting the normalization of homosexuality? That was something major, especially as the stat, 85 percent, believable as it was, was simply pulled out of his behind. That's something you simply cannot say in America, something they don't want you to know, any Republican who said that would have been purged from public life, but this guy is a Democrat, and the Vice president. So you, a liberal, want to simply ignore it. And just as we aren't supposed to notice the Jewish influence in Hollywood, we aren't supposed to notice the liberal control of Wikipedia. But I do notice, I notice your hypocrisy. John Martin Walker (talk) 03:02, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

It's pointless to continue this, but for the record, the triumphs of gay rights have not come from Hollywood or any one religious group but rather from people of all walks of life and all demographics and all groups of friends and all extended families. And the spread of states approving gay marriage has come from seeing the states that came before them and observing that nothing bad happened and many good things happened. Wasted Time R (talk) 04:30, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Your respond is typical liberalism. I'm sure you will rush to credit the Mormons, and the (literal)Eskimos, and Jesse Jackson, and people from Appalachia, for the triumph of homosexual rights. After all, I'm sure you can point to some gay Mormon as evidence, because even one exception renders generalizations meaningless. And you refer implicitly to the Jews as a "religious group." Few of the secular Jews that Biden seems to think live in Hollywood believe in any religion. John Martin Walker (talk) 23:49, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Coverage of the comments about Jewish influence should be in the article

What he said was truly extraordinary, no other politician has ever said anything like it. It obviously deserves to be cited. Here is but one of many "reliable sources" that can be used to cite his quote:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/biden-praises-jews-goes-too-far.html Nine Er Nine Er (talk) 03:32, 27 January 2014 (UTC)

As far as the comments being "truly extraordinary" and no other politician ever saying anything like it, that's quite simply false. Tommy Thompson had an almost identical incident when addressing a group of Jewish activists in Washington, D.C in 2007. He went overboard trying to flatter some constituents and ended up saying something goofy and mildly offensive. It happens a lot, and there's nothing about this one in particular that merits its inclusion. MWindsor2014 (talk) 05:06, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

"It happens a lot?" You have ONE instance, and it is IN the Wikipedia article, plus the ADL wasn't too happy about it. And what Thompson said wasn't particularly insightful. It's not a very well kept secret that Jews are known for a history of finance. However, the Jewish role in promoting of acceptance of homosexuality is a much more inflammatory issue. This is obviously not just a routine thing. Would you say something similar and sign your REAL name to it? After all, it's not like it matters. Do it below this comment: Ten Eleven 3333333333 (talk) 02:14, 10 February 2014 (UTC)

Comments about Hollywood and Jewish influence

His comments about Hollywood and Jewish influence should be in the article. Here are some sources to cite:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/05/22/biden-jewish-leaders-helped-gay-marriage-succeed/?wprss=rss_election-2012 http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/biden-talks-outsized-influence-jews-influence-immense_728765.html?google_editors_picks=true http://news.yahoo.com/biden-jewish-leaders-drove-gay-012202293.html http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/05/biden-praises-jews-goes-too-far.html http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/349155/joe-biden-attributes-social-liberalism-jewish-control-hollywood-%E2%80%98social-media%E2%80%99-patrick Dennis Alloire (talk) 02:07, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

Already discussed and decided against at Talk:Joe Biden/Archive 5#Article should include coverage of his comments about the Jews and Talk:Joe Biden/Archive 5#Coverage of the comments about Jewish influence should be in the article. All "five" editors pushing for this, including this one, have been obvious WP:SPA's. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:01, 26 June 2014 (UTC)

issue with the twitter link

The text that links to Joe Biden's twitter feed should be "@JoeBiden", not "@Joe Biden" to correspond with the username of his twitter feed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.119.154.248 (talk) 23:42, 16 August 2014 (UTC)

The Onion

As this is a major publication which does an ongoing series on Biden, also reported in NY Times, I think it deserves its own section or at least a mention in main article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/business/media/11biden.html?_r=0 http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/biden-getting-an-autobiography-from-the-onion-whether-he-wants-it-or-not/ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/style/a-biden-moment.html?pagewanted=all http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/biden-ny-times-homepage_n_781813.html

http://www.theonion.com/channels/joseph-biden/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/biden-gets-grow-light-delivered-to-white-house-und,36597/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/biden-frantically-hitting-up-cabinet-members-for-c,34515/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/biden-has-guy-named-worm-sit-in-for-him-at-cabinet,33250/

http://www.theonion.com/articles/biden-to-cool-his-heels-in-mexico-for-a-while,17996/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:6:6F00:538:9CA:E037:BEFD:3674 (talk) 17:02, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

I thought about adding this a few years ago, but wondered if it would have staying power. Since it seems to have had, I have added it now, in the Veep first term section. Wasted Time R (talk) 14:23, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

please rethink this because he became Vice President

I find this:

"The Bidens are Roman Catholics and regularly attend Mass at St. Joseph on the Brandywine in Greenville, Delaware."

OK, but you may want to reword this to refer to his time as Senator, with no comment intended on his time (still current when I wrote the message you are reading) as Vice President. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.63.16.47 (talk) 18:48, 4 November 2014 (UTC)

They still attend there during his vice presidency (it isn't that far away). See this Politico story from 2011 - "They go to Mass at their old church, St. Joseph on the Brandywine." See also this photo caption in 2012, this church newsletter in 2014, etc. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:49, 5 November 2014 (UTC)

Veterans Day ceremonies

It's notable that in 2010 (after the Democrats lost the House) and 2014 (after the Democrats lost the Senate) the President went overseas while Biden stood in for the Veterans Day ceremonies at Arlington National Cemetery. 66.67.32.161 (talk) 16:10, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Is it? That sounds like a coincidence to me. – Muboshgu (talk) 17:17, 11 November 2014 (UTC)

Creepy Reputation

I think it is significantly noteworthy that Biden has developed a reputation of being very "touchy-feely" with women and girls. http://www.newsy.com/videos/biden-gets-too-close-for-comfort-again/

I just don't know how to add this to the article in a politically correct way. It is noteworthy for the following reasons. 1) His behavior has entered into popular culture. 2) He isn't this way with men, boys. 3) Its clearly unsettling and frequent. Gabefair (talk) 20:43, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

It should be noted that the vice president's frequent inappropriateness is likely attributable to the worsening brain damage from which he suffers. (He underwent two aneurism operations in early 1988 - as the Wiki presently states.) To NOT acknowledge this is indicative of bias. (Even the word "brain" seems awkwardly avoided in the entry's text.)

This WaPo piece from today shows some recent attention to the behavior, as does this Sydney Morning Herald story. It's definitely worth considering including.

As for saying that his behavior is due to brain damage, that's wild speculation on your part that immediately weakens your case.

As for the text that describes his 1988 aneurysms avoiding the word "brain", it says "intracranial berry aneurysm" which is medically more specific. Wasted Time R (talk) 01:44, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

Well, his behavior with the wife of SecDef has been mentioned in prominent sourcing...[2]. But yeah, suggesting there's any organic brain abnormality is WP:SYNTH. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:56, 18 February 2015 (UTC)

I've now added a brief mention of this to the article. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:58, 19 February 2015 (UTC)

It's rather pointless to expect more than just a passing, euphemistic reference to such Jozo's behavior in Wikipedia. The same kind of "impartial" lefties who dominate Wikipedia dominate "impartial" journalism. And they dominate "nonpartisan" comedy shows like Saturday Night Live, which tonight opened with a lengthy Rudy G. slam skit, had a hard-hitting on Trump, & then had a brief, soft bit about Biden's forts, so they could claim they didn't ignore Biden being in the news recently with his dirty old man buffoonery during the Ashton Carton speech. If you don't believe me, consider the nearly 30-year record of Jozo saying hundreds of ridiculous things, including demeaning things about Indians, blacks, & woman, not to mention dozens of unwanted touch of women and teen girls. Keep that in mind, read the Dan Quayle BLP (biography article) here about a handful of things he said over 4 1/2 years that were dumb, mangled, or that lefty journalists simply didn't like, read this article immediately after, and you'll see why I say expecting more here is pointless. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.37.243.153 (talk) 06:39, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

The text I added says: "By 2015, a series of swearings-in and other events where Biden placed his hands on women and girls and talked closely to them had attracted the attention of both the press and social media.[278][279][280] In one case, a senator issued a statement afterward saying about his daughter, "No, she doesn't think the vice president is creepy."[281]" What else would you have it say?

This article hardly ignores Biden's tendency for loose talk and saying ridiculous things. It's mentioned in the lead, it is mentioned at length in the "1988 presidential campaign" section, it has a full paragraph in "Characteristics as senator", it has another paragraph in "2008 presidential campaign", is mentioned again in "2008 vice-presidential campaign", has another full paragraph in "Post-election transition and first term", and a paragraph again in "2012 re-election campaign".

If you don't like the Quayle article, you need to bring it up there, not here, as that article is not written to the same GA standards as this one. It doesn't overweight Quayle's verbal blunders, but it does underweight other aspects of this political career. In particular, his 12 years in the House and Senate is covered in only parts of three paragraphs, which is way too little. Best would be if you start researching and writing and adding material yourself on that period to the Quayle article. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:06, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Thank you for making my case. The amount of criticism is minimal, euphemistically described, and has more space devoted to countering those criticisms than the criticisms themselves. Mentioned in the lead? Yeah, technically it is. The entirety of it in the lead: "Throughout his career, Biden's political style has combined appeal to middle and working class voters with a penchant for unfiltered remarks." "At length in the '1988 presidential campaign' section": sorta. It is comparatively long for criticism of a non-conservative Democrat politician's BLP, but the great majority of it is devoted to competing Biden & Kinnock quotes and excusing away what he did. Only a small portion actually described what he did. Hilariously, after entirely blaming staff for poor messaging, it describes his main plagiarism scandal as follows: "the campaign ran into trouble when he was accused of plagiarizing a speech that had been made earlier that year by Neil Kinnock, leader of the British Labour Party." Characteristics as senator? "loquacious"! Ha ha!

You make my case yet again by saying that the Quayle BLP doesn't overweight Quayle's handful of verbal blunders over 4 1/2 years of VP candidate & VP, vs. dozens & dozens of them by Biden (several of them have veered into racist or near-racist & misogynistic or near-so)over 8 years as Presidential candidate & VP, not to mention the decades before that. And not to mention his buffoonish dirty-old man manhandling of women & girls in public.

When "impartial" lefty WP editors & admins defend these kind of absurd double-standards, I don't know if they are so insular in who they listen to as credible, or are thinking that those idiot non-lefties won't realize that clever Wikilawyering can credibly explain the double standard. This "encyclopedical" article could receive nearly 100% support from Jozo, his family, the Obama administration, or the DNC. Of course they wouldn't insist that ALL criticism be absent. They would insist that it be described as briefly as possible, in the best possible way, and with lengthier "explanations" for his buffoonery.

Enjoy your la-la-land of "credible" "impartial" political BLPs, as the credibility of them keeps suffering & the only ones who believe them are credulous lefty partisans. That policy has worked SO well for the "impartial" industry of political journalism in its subscriber & viewer #s, hasn't it?? [03:40, March 3, 2015‎ 96.37.243.153]

You missed my point at the end. The Quayle article badly underweights his Congressional career, but it doesn't have to be that way. You – meaning you, 96.37.243.153, not anybody else – can stop complaining and can start researching and writing about Quayle's time in the House and the Senate and thus measurably improve that article. As for the Biden article, there is no way I can convince you that it treats this aspect of him impartially – we'll see the same sets of words and view them entirely differently. As for "countering those criticisms", well, yes: the WP rules demand that, as does reality. Biden can't be quite the useless buffoon you think he is, because during his political career he has been part of 10 general elections and he has won all 10 of them. He must be doing something right too. Wasted Time R (talk) 10:57, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Can we stick to the subject. I think a small mention is all that is needed. Biden hasn't caused any formal controversy. I only believe it needs to be included for cultural reference. Thanks. Gabefair (talk) 06:45, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Personal Details

Under personal details, daughter Naomi should also have a parenthetical citation (deceased). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.64.13.44 (talk) 02:27, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

For continuity, daughter Naomi's year of death should be included in the parenthetical citation to match with Beau. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.0.148.31 (talk) 03:29, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 May 2015

In Family and Early Political Career section-- Current text: On August 27, 1966, Biden, while still a law student, married Hunter....[23] Suggest "married Neilia Hunter...." This edit will aid in reading whether as stand alone section or just ease of narrative flow.

108.201.221.171 (talk) 16:28, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Done -- Orduin ^Discuss 18:16, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Baby of the Senate

The second paragraph of the lead says he "became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history." This strikes me not just as way too trivial for the lead, but also misleading. It's misleading because he started in the Senate at the age of 30, and there were 17 other US Senators who also started at age 30 or younger (it's customary to say that two people who are 30 are the same age). See Byrd, Robert and Wolff, Wendy. Senate, 1789-1989: Historical Statistics, 1789-1992, Volume 4, p. 285 (Government Printing Office 1993).Anythingyouwant (talk) 01:52, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

The source you give also says he is 6th youngest, not 15th like you claimed in your edit. It's not misleading because all age records and lists like this are broken out by years and then number of days in order to rank them. See for example List of Presidents of the United States by age, List of Australian Prime Ministers by age, List of ages of popes, List of oldest and youngest National Basketball Association players, List of oldest and youngest Academy Award winners and nominees, and so forth. It's not trivial because he illustrates the high degree of self-confidence with which he approached politics. How many people have the nerve/chutzpah to run for the U.S. Senate when they're only 29 years old and the ability to actually win? Wasted Time R (talk) 02:14, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

For sure, you corrected an error of mine before this talk page got started. But still it's worded trivially and misleadingly: "Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 and became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history." The non-trivial way to say it would be like this: "Biden was first elected to the Senate was first elected to the Senate in 1972 at the minimum constitutional age of 30 years old." The trivial but not misleading way to say it would be: "Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972 at the minimum constitutional age of 30 years old, and thus became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history, and one of only 18 who started as senators before reaching the age of 31." But instead we have a sentence in the lead that's both trivial and misleading. As for chutzpa, I think it takes more to become a success in some other field before going into politics.  :)Anythingyouwant (talk) 03:28, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Your two versions are still a little bit inaccurate. Biden was elected while still 29, then turned 30 about two weeks later, several weeks before he would be sworn in. Going back some years, an older version of the lead said, "Biden was first elected to the Senate in 1972; sworn in 1973 at the Constitutional minimum age of 30, he became the sixth-youngest senator in U.S. history." I'm fine with going back to that formulation. But he is indeed the sixth youngest, and there is no reason not to say so. As far as I can tell from looking at these lists, in modern times (when people started following the Constitution on this matter!) he's one of only three senators to be elected before turning 30 (the others being Rush D. Holt, Sr. and Russell B. Long); that seems pretty non-trivial to me. Wasted Time R (talk) 12:02, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

He was the sixth youngest, one of only 18 who started as senators before reaching the age of 31, and one of only X senators elected at age 29. In my view these are all kind of trivial stats, best left for the body of the Wikipedia article if included at all, and we would be better off saying in the lead that he became a senator at the minimum constitutional age. YMMV. Perhaps you're biased since you became a Wikipedia editor at the age of two, in the 1940s.  :-)Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:18, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just added archive links to 16 external links on Joe Biden. Please take a moment to review my edit. If necessary, add {{cbignore}} after the link to keep me from modifying it. Alternatively, you can add {{nobots|deny=InternetArchiveBot}} to keep me off the page altogether. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20140202110137/http://www.lafayette.edu/about/?p=29444&wpmp_switcher=mobile to http://www.lafayette.edu/about/?p=29444&wpmp_switcher=mobile
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090406014842/http://www.scrantontimes.com:80/articles/2008/08/24/news/sc_times_trib.20080824.a.pg1.tt24biden_s1.1896121_top4.txt to http://www.scrantontimes.com/articles/2008/08/24/news/sc_times_trib.20080824.a.pg1.tt24biden_s1.1896121_top4.txt
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081022055510/http://projects.washingtonpost.com:80/2008-presidential-candidates/joe-biden/ to http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-presidential-candidates/joe-biden
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090601072408/http://insideedition.com:80/storyprint.aspx?SpecialReportID=2048 to http://insideedition.com/storyprint.aspx?SpecialReportID=2048
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20070705193830/http://www.ndvh.org/tenth/history.html to http://www.ndvh.org/tenth/history.html
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120125234026/http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110319/NEWS03/110319015/Biden-I-don-t-deserve-Amtrak-station-honor?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE to http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110319/NEWS03/110319015/Biden-I-don-t-deserve-Amtrak-station-honor?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120725145844/http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/08/24/a_look_at_bidens_net_worth/ to http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2008/08/24/a_look_at_bidens_net_worth/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080828210626/http://tnr.com:80/politics/story.html?id=2ecbd0b9-c2c4-44d7-824a-603b4a418c74 to http://tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=2ecbd0b9-c2c4-44d7-824a-603b4a418c74
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090212100305/http://www.delawareonline.com:80/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901070333 to http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009901070333
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081109060406/http://www.delawareonline.com:80/article/20081106/NEWS02/811060379 to http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20081106/NEWS02/811060379
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20090505114058/http://www.boston.com:80/news/health/articles/2009/05/01/white_house_tempers_bidens_swine_flu_advice/ to http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2009/05/01/white_house_tempers_bidens_swine_flu_advice/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20120126001155/http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110505/NEWS02/105050326/Biden-tasked-achieving-consensus-cutting-deficit?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome to http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110505/NEWS02/105050326/Biden-tasked-achieving-consensus-cutting-deficit?odyssey=tab%7Ctopnews%7Ctext%7CHome
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080720153525/http://matrix.scranton.edu/about/ab_degree_recipients.shtml to http://matrix.scranton.edu/about/ab_degree_recipients.shtml
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20080904003527/http://www.sju.edu/ir/documents/HonDegreeRecip_IR2008.pdf to http://www.sju.edu/ir/documents/HonDegreeRecip_IR2008.pdf
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050528151022/http://www.boston.com:80/news/education/higher/articles/2005/05/23/commencements_boston_globe to http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/05/23/commencements_boston_globe/
• Added archive https://web.archive.org/20081125111957/http://biden.senate.gov/press/press_releases/release/?id=DCA94360-B4AC-4BED-A41E-B7C27F42B4A1 to http://biden.senate.gov/press/press_releases/release/?id=dca94360-b4ac-4bed-a41e-b7c27f42b4a1

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Recurring issues

@Professor JR:Today, this edit removed an alleged "editorializing opinion". The removed parenthetical stated "further plagiarism accusations would later derail his 1988 presidential bid". I disagree with the removal, and with the characterization of the removal, and will rephrase and restore it. The issue of plagiarism unambiguously recurred later in his career, in 1988. When it did so, many reliable sources in 1988 (and subsequently) referred back to the incident in law school, which thus became far more notable. Wikipedia BLPs rarely adhere to such a rigidly chronological format that they cannot connect related events that are separated in time. For better worse, this is such an instance. There's nothing editorializing or opinionated about it, as the cited sources show.Anythingyouwant (talk) 12:45, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

I changed it to "this incident would later attract attention when further plagiarism accusations emerged in 1987", still in parentheses.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:39, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

@Anythingyouwant: It looks fine now, with your subsequent edit. My problem was with asserting that this, as though this alone, would "derail" his 1988 presidential bid, since this was but one of a number of factors for his lack of success in that campaign. Maybe that's parsing too much on my part, but at any rate, it's fine as stated now. Regards, --- Professor JR (talk) 19:38, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Thanks for the ping and the constructive criticism.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:43, 20 September 2015 (UTC)

Class rank

@Professor JR: We have reliable sources that give his class rank, and this info was included in this Wikipedia article for a long time until today. This BLP gives details like the fact that he double majored in history and political science, that he got his BA in 1965, that classmates were impressed by his cramming abilities, that he played halfback in college, that he received a half scholarship, etcetera. So I don't see why not to mention that he graduated 506th of 688 in his college class, and 76th of 85 in his law school class.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:41, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Restored.Anythingyouwant (talk) 20:54, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

This information has been reverted, with the following edit summary: "not included in BLP's of other candidates -- why here?" My answer is as follows. This is very standard information for presidential candidates when it is available. For example, the John McCain article says: "He came into conflict with higher-ranking personnel and did not always obey the rules, which contributed to a low class rank (894 of 899), despite a high IQ." The Mitt Romney article says: "He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English with highest honors in 1971, giving commencement addresses to both the College of Humanities and to the whole of BYU....He graduated in 1975 cum laude from the law school, in the top third of that class, and was named a Baker Scholarfor graduating in the top five percent of his business school class." The Hillary Clinton article says: "she was a National Merit Finalist and graduated in the top five percent of her class of 1965....In 1969, she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts, with departmental honors in political science...." If some of the other candidate articles at Wikipedia don't include anything about class rank, it may be because they haven't made the information available.

Generally speaking, there are hundreds of Wikipedia biographical articles that give class rank, such as these:

• "Judge Wiener received his law degree in 1961, graduating first in his class."

• "He graduated fourth in his class at the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1918 and was commissioned into the US Army Corps of Engineers."

• "Rodriguez graduated in 2012, ranking third in his class."

• "He graduated first in his class and received his J.D. in 1971."

• "He graduated from the Ottoman Military Academy second in his class (Fahreddin was first, Enver was fourth, Mahmud Kâmil was eighth) and graduated from the Ottoman Military College first in his class (Enver was second, Mahmud Kâmil was fourth, Fahreddin was seventh) on December 5, 1902."

Hundreds more are in these Wikipedia search results. Incidentally, I am not the one who initially inserted this class rank information here at this Wikipedia article, but it does seem entirely appropriate.Anythingyouwant (talk) 13:32, 22 September 2015 (UTC)

"not included in BLP's of other candidates -- why here?"

"If some of the other candidate articles at Wikipedia don't include anything about class rank ..."

Candidate for WHAT? Certainly not for president. Biden is NOT a candidate for president. ---Dagme (talk) 15:24, 29 September 2015 (UTC)

2016 Presidential Campaign

Update needed for fact that Biden was invited to the upcoming CNN October Democratic debate on extraordinary terms - he only need decide to formally run the day of the debate to be included on the dias. The Article should state that it was reported that Biden had not yet decided to run and that it was reported he felt he may not have time to prepare for the debate at the same time as organizing his potential run. The article should also be updated to report that Biden has begun to receive donor support from a number of significant donors previously committed to Hillary Clinton and that these defections prompted very active outreach by Clinton staffers to defend their funding base's commitment. These items the current news through October 6, 2015. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.73.211 (talk) 02:10, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Nation Building

Here's the text from the source to support this edit:

"Biden was an original believer in the epic project of nation-building in Afghanistan. “Whatever it takes, we should do it,” he said soon after the Taliban government in Kabul was toppled in 2001."CFredkin (talk) 17:01, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I was mistaken about it being in the source because I searched for nation building, not nation-building. Nonetheless, I object to your bold changes and would ask that we discuss them and determine if there is consensus. I have two major concerns: this article is loaded with trivial detail, and the tone, and some of the hand-picked content, seems to cast Biden in an overly negative light. - MrX 17:16, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Since my edits have been reverted in masse, I'm removing the content which is unsourced or not supported by the sources. Per WP:BLP, the burden of evidence resides with the restoring editor when issues regarding the verifiability of content arise in BLP's.CFredkin (talk) 19:06, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

I don't object to removing anything that is unsourced.- MrX 19:30, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Bombing in the Balkans

The same source is ref'd for 3 different bombings in the article, but only mentions 2:

1. Article: Once the Bosnian War broke out, Biden was among the first to call for the "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo, training Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air strikes, and investigating war crimes.

Source: He was among the first to advocate lifting the arms embargo on the Bosnian Muslims and supporting them with NATO air power, a policy known as "lift and strike."

2. Article: The 1995 NATO bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina then led to the Dayton Agreement...

3. Article: In 1999, during the Kosovo War, Biden supported the NATO bombing campaign against Serbia and Montenegro..

Source: When President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia cracked down on Albanian separatists in Kosovo, Biden supported the NATO bombing campaign to force Serbian troops to leave the breakaway province.

I'm planning to remove #2 until a source can be found.CFredkin (talk) 21:07, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Second VP to not seek office

Is this the first time two consecutive Vice Presidents have not sought the presidency? Just curious. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.13.9.164 (talk) 20:30, 21 October 2015 (UTC)

Biden has sought the presidency, just not during or after his vice-presidency. I think the last time that happened was 1925-1933 when Charles G. Dawes and Charles Curtis had the same thing (not) happen.Anythingyouwant (talk) 15:02, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 November 2015

Update the line

Biden receiving a 1997 tour of a new facility at Delaware's Dover Air Force Base

to read

Biden receiving a 1997 tour of a Delaware's new facility by Captain Andy Molnar Dover Air Force Base

I was Captain Andy Molnar, Flight Commander of the Passenger Terminal. I retired as a Colonel, USAF, in 2014.

Thank you for considering my request. It was a great tour and the crowd enjoyed the visit by Joe Biden.

97.88.113.120 (talk) 00:59, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

Closing as this request has sat for a month without an answer. You can create an account, make 10 edits and wait 4 days to make changes to this article. - a boat that can float! (happy holidays) 09:58, 3 December 2015 (UTC)