Compare and Contrast

John McCain and Joe Biden each faced personal tragedy in their lives. When Biden was thirty years old, his wife and daughter were killed in an automobile accident. His two sons were seriously injured. At age 31, John McCain was taken captive by the North Vietnamese and held prisoner for almost five years.

Here’s Barack today, as he described Biden’s response to personal tragedy:

It might be hard to believe when you hear him talk now, but as a child he had a terrible stutter. They called him “Bu-bu-Biden.” But he picked himself up, worked harder than the other guy, and got elected to the Senate - a young man with a family and a seemingly limitless future.

Then tragedy struck. Joe’s wife Neilia and their little girl Naomi were killed in a car accident, and their two boys were badly hurt. When Joe was sworn in as a Senator, there was no ceremony in the Capitol - instead, he was standing by his sons in the hospital room where they were recovering. He was 30 years old.

Tragedy tests us - it tests our fortitude and it tests our faith. Here’s how Joe Biden responded. He never moved to Washington. Instead, night after night, week after week, year after year, he returned home to Wilmington on a lonely Amtrak train when his Senate business was done. He raised his boys - first as a single dad [for five years], then alongside his wonderful wife Jill, who works as a teacher. He had a beautiful daughter. Now his children are grown and Joe is blessed with 5 grandchildren. He instilled in them such a sense of public service that his son, Beau, who is now Delaware’s Attorney General, is getting ready to deploy to Iraq. And he still takes that train back to Wilmington every night. Out of the heartbreak of that unspeakable accident, he did more than become a Senator - he raised a family. That is the measure of the man standing next to me. That is the character of Joe Biden.

Joe Biden has served both his country and his family with honor.

CNN made this report on John McCain’s response to personal tragedy:

And then there was this eye-witness account from someone who was there when McCain was abandoning his family:

… while on a trip as a Navy liaison with the Senate, [the still married] McCain spied Hensley at the Honolulu reception. In a recent television interview with Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show,” Cindy McCain joked about how the Navy captain had pursued her. “He kind of chased me around . . . the hors d’oeuvre table,” she said. “I was trying to get something to eat and I thought, ‘This guy’s kind of weird.’ I was kind of trying to get away from him.” John McCain was 42; she was 24.

They say McCain served his country as a gallant warrior. Maybe so, but he served his family with complete dishonor.

[CNN link via Jed]

Posted by poputonian on 08/23/08 at 03:35 PM • Permalink

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