David M. Shribman
John Quincy Adams learned the rudiments of politics from his father, who preceded him as president by two dozen years.
Calvin Coolidge was sworn into the presidency by his father, who administered the oath of office by the light of an oil lamp at 2:47 on a Vermont morning.
John F. Kennedy was shaped by his father, a tycoon-turned-ambassador.
They were not alone. George W. Bush witnessed the gentility of his presidential father, George H.W. Bush, who in turn had been tutored by his senatorial father, Prescott Bush. A dozen presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama — and in modern times Herbert Hoover, Gerald Ford, and Bill Clinton — were influenced by the absence or early deaths of their fathers.
But perhaps no president was formed as much by his father as Joseph R. Biden Jr.
Indeed, Joseph R. Biden Sr. — whose fortunes rose and fell as much as Thomas Lincoln’s, who moved as often as Joseph Wilson, who ascended into the middle class the way George Harding did — is a constant presence in the president’s mind, perspective, and speeches.
In his son’s telling, the father was attentive, diligent and wise. In the aphorisms that are sprinkled into the son’s speeches, the father’s views comprise something of a Poor Joe’s Almanack.
While Benjamin Franklin’s axioms have special relevance to Mr. Biden — “Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults and if you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten, either write things worth reading, or do things worth writing” — it is the maxims of the father that have shaped the son:
“My dad used to say, ‘Joey, I don’t expect the government to solve my problems. But I expect it to understand my problems.’”
This is a classic distillation of post-New Deal Democratic thinking, which is remarkable given that the senior Mr. Biden was 18 years old when Franklin Delano Roosevelt became president and initiated a series of programs explicitly designed to have the government solve individuals’ problems. In this, the president’s father possessed views ahead of his time.
My own father had always said the measure of a man wasn’t how many times or how hard he got knocked down, but how fast he got back up.
Here the senior Mr. Biden expresses the essence of the junior Mr. Biden, who despite a remarkable early start in politics — he was elected to the Senate at age 29 — needed three presidential campaigns to win the White House.
My father used to say the only disagreement worse than one that is intended is one that is unintended.
The younger Mr. Biden might have heeded this one with more devotion. Some presidents have wandering eyes — you know who they were — but the 46th president suffers from a severe case of wandering rhetoric.
In his first 100 days in office, Mr. Biden made 67 false or misleading statements — and though that is far fewer than Donald Trump’s 511 in the equivalent period in 2017, some attention to the “disagreement” credo might have kept him out of hot water.
“My dad used to say, ‘Joey, don’t compare me to the Almighty. Compare me to the alternative.’”
Here the president might be saying, “Voters, don’t compare me to Abraham Lincoln. Compare me to Donald Trump.” It is the 21st-century equivalent of Gerald Ford reminding Americans that he was “a Ford, not a Lincoln.”
My father used to say that a job was about a lot more than a paycheck. It was about your dignity, your respect, your place in the community.
Mr. Biden was speaking about the economy when he made this remark last August. It is about the redemptive quality of work.
But he also could have been speaking about himself. The president’s job is about more than the title. It is about the dignity he attempts to display and the respect he hopes to earn in a political community that sometimes has regarded him as a trimmer or — in the characterization of three-time House Speaker Sam Rayburn (1882-1961) — a work horse, not a show horse.
None of this is to demean the importance of presidential mothers. John Quincy Adams, Lincoln, Harding, Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Ford, both presidents Bush, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, among many others, profited from strong — in some cases visionary — mothers.
“There never was a woman like her. She was gentle as a dove and brave as a lioness,” Andrew Jackson said of Elizabeth Jackson. “The memory of my mother and her teachings were, after all, the only capital I had to start life with, and on that capital I have made my way.”
Ronald Reagan said of Nelle Wilson Reagan: “From my mother I learned the value of prayer, how to have dreams and believe I could make them come true.”
My own dad shaped my life with these bits of wisdom: All things in moderation. … There’s nothing more valuable than a college education. … I wish you knew as much about your schoolwork as you do about the Red Sox. …You’d be a lot better off if you spent more time thinking about girls and less time thinking about Woodrow Wilson.
It wasn’t only my dad. Here are a few from my mom: Don’t put a ketchup bottle on the table. … Remember that the ocean is always stronger than you are. … Know the value of a dollar.
From my father-in-law: Never accept the first price you get from a car dealer. Plus his advice, 30 years ago, when I first became an editor and had to manage a staff: Treat those people well.
I don’t know what my daughters will recall that their dad used to say when the time comes to put my remarks in the past tense.
Maybe: Turn off the lights when you leave a room. Perhaps: Never pay a cent of credit card interest. It could be: Don’t waste your time on Facebook. It might be: Always add more principal on your mortgage payment. Or this: Make sure you withhold enough for your 401(k) so you get the maximum company match. Almost certainly it will be: Ask Mom.
If they do those things, they are likely to remember the thing I always believed — the comment they say I always make: It will be fine.
Truly, it — whatever it is — will be fine, if they follow those other admonitions. Especially the one about asking Mom.
A Swampscott High School Class of 1972 member, David M. Shribman is the Pulitzer Prize-winning former executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
