I met Joe Biden when he was a very young man and I was even younger. I was his driver for a day on a visit he made to Ohio.
He was a rising young politician and on fire — two years in the Senate and already there was talk of him as a future president. (It only took another 46 years.)
I liked him enormously, you could not help but.
In the years passing, I have watched Mr. Biden rise and fall many times. Not every moment at the center of the arena was golden. He has said so himself. But he survived. And with each triumph and failure he seemed to learn. And though the man I met that day so long ago is older and slower, and far less critical of the orthodoxies of the Democratic Party, he is also wiser.
One constant, from then to now — he is not a self-righteous person. He takes people as he finds them and finds a way to work with them. Failing that, he befriends them anyway.
For Mr. Biden, politics is about the human element — relationships. Not doctrinal purity, or shouting down, or demonizing the guy on the other side of the fence.
This is an extraordinarily lucky trait in a politician — especially one who would lead us as both head of government and head of state.
Few presidents have been able to do both jobs well. The last two were Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin D. Roosevelt.
I do not know how good at their work the two new senators from Georgia will be, especially at first. But they will give Mr. Biden a fighting chance to do his job. I thought Donald Trump deserved that. I think Joe Biden deserves that, too.
And the country needs for him to be a success, as former President George W. Bush said last week.
We also need some peace.
Some other things that bode well about our (old) new president.
1) He understands government and takes it seriously.
He knows the federal government, its operations, and its three branches as well as anyone who has ever held the job.
He was a useful and effective vice president. Not since Hubert Humphrey was there a veep who knew as much about the structures and functions of our system.
Humphrey had an unbounded zest for the good that government could do and the details of applying legislation. He would phone up people in the middle bureaucracy and ask them how legislation he’d helped pass was actually working.
You know who told me that about Humphrey? Joe Biden.
2) He is not intimidated by the left or the press.
The left will be clamoring throughout the term. It will never be satisfied and its members will quickly find Mr. Biden wanting.
If you look at his Cabinet appointments, which have been mostly superb — AG and Treasury were the best — Mr. Biden has held firm to his own course: centrist and managerial. He listens, but he decides. He wants diversity, but with assured competence. And he seems to value excellence, experience, expertise and, yes, relationship, far more than ideology.
3) He goes to church.
He will be the first regular churchgoer since Jimmy Carter to occupy the White House.
He started Inauguration Day by going to Mass.
I am reassured by a president who knows he is only a man (or woman) and needs help.
I don’t care if it is a mosque, a temple, or if the president is a Hindu or Buddhist. I am comforted by a president who kneels and prays.
It’s a sign of humility and reverence for things greater than power.
4) He’s from somewhere.
Nixon was from California but left it twice for New York. The Clintons dumped Arkansas, also for New York. Barack Obama did not go back to Illinois or Hawaii. He stayed in Washington.
These people chose to live near the media and power. They did not choose to go “home” and live quietly when their day was done.
I have no doubt that when Joe Biden leaves office, he will go back home to Delaware.
Like Jimmy Carter went back to Plains.
5) There is a modesty about him that is a balm.
Sometimes Mr. Biden reminds me of Ike and of Coolidge. He doesn’t always have to be the center of attention. (Harry Truman said he didn’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. He wanted Dean Acheson and George Marshall there.)
Joe Biden has deep and abiding respect for the norms and institutions of our politics, which makes him some kind of conservative, though I do not think his administration will be conservative.
6) He is comfortable in his own skin.
For people willing to learn from life, this is the compensation of age.
We have had so many presidents who seemed to find no pleasure in their own company, never mind the company of others. Nixon is the obvious example. Donald Trump is the ultimate one.
Joe Biden likes people, likes who he is, and is proud of his profession. He’s been preparing for this moment for roughly 50 years. And what he projects is the mind and heart of a person who wants to be where he is and knows what he is doing.
He actually seems more comfortable in the job he has sought for so long than when he was seeking it.
Mr. Biden has survived so much, personally and politically, that I think it has made him internally strong — just as his age has also made him seem rather fragile physically.
His age scares me. So does the woke left. Pace yourself, Joe.
There will be tests and trials, and as he said last week, he will make mistakes. There is that modesty again — quietly resilient, American and wise.
Keith C. Burris is editor, vice president and editorial director of Block Newspapers(kburris@post-gazette.com).
First Published: January 24, 2021, 5:00 a.m.
