Promises to Keep by Joe Biden

Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics by Joe Biden
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Presumably, Biden wrote this in preparation for his 2008 Presidential run. I'm not sure if my perspective would have been different if I read then, but it falls flat in 2019. Part of this is due to his candor, which I appreciate, but even so. He doesn't seem like warm and charming "Uncle Joe," but rather a kind of arrogant, aggressively ambitious person who ran for President in 1988, even when, back then, he had no particular reason to run other than he wanted to President.

His politics are disturbingly centrist, or rather conservative by today's standards. I was horrified by his explanation of voting against bussing in 1974, and then - writing in 2007- he was more concerned that a bunch of Connecticut suburbanites had mistakenly thought he voted for bussing than being concerned that the rest of us might more accurately think he was a civil-rights-crushing Senator. Indeed, he expressed a lot of sympathy for people that repressed civil rights. Well, here in 2019, where we are witnessing a resurgence of racist language and legislation, these views seem gross and irresponsible at best.

He also largely underplayed his pretty well-documented plagiarism in law school and on the 1987 campaign trail. He was either sloppy and lazy in his youth, or quite straight-forwardly dishonest, and neither is good. Obviously, that part is 30 years in the past, and he's potentially changed quite a bit since then, but also, maybe he hasn't?

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