Talk:Joe Biden

Family section

In this sentence "In the aftermath of the accident, he had trouble focusing on work, and just went through the motions of being a senator." Does anyone else feel that 'just' is a weasel word, likely unintentional? I don't think that anyone would argue that he was negligent to his job, which that vaguely implies. The sentence is important because he was obviously deeply affected but, the wording seems strange. Is there a source that might be able to be used?

An the article sourced for this sentence: "They had met on a blind date with Biden's brother's help though it turned out that Biden had already fancied Jacobs when he saw her in a local advertisement." That sounds unnecessarily creepy [for lack of a better word] to me. Mcoogan75 (talk) 02:32, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It certainly does, and "fancied" isn't American English, which is what should be used in an article about an American politician. A little better might be "had already noticed her in a local advertisement." —KCinDC (talk) 04:18, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I changed it. —KCinDC (talk) 15:13, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

Earmarks quote

The article under "Delaware" states with a purported quote that he "reported" an amount of "earmarks" that he "garnered" for the state he represents. The citation does not state that he "reported" anything, the "quote" is from the author of the article cited, and not the subject, and that same author (not Biden, to whom the statement is attributed) characterizes certain expenditures as "earmarks" and asserts that Biden, the subject of the article, "garnered" those expenditures. The statement is lacking citation, and is therefore clearly beyond NPOV.

This sort of article is helpful at times of particular interest like this, but like those of the other candidates, nowhere near encyclopedic. Sickening. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.197.93.206 (talk) 05:53, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right, there should have been no quote there or 'Biden reported'. I've reworded it to indicate it's a straight fact about how much in earmarks Biden acquired for Delaware. I think though it's clear that these expenditures were earmarks, not just the Hill writer's opinion.

As for being sickening, keep making comments here about what the article is lacking, that's how it will get better. Wasted Time R (talk) 11:26, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Joe_Biden#Early_life_and_education

I'm no expert on Joe Biden—in fact I'm only just learning about him—but this section gives a lot of weight—perhaps too much weight—to negative aspects of his life. It looks like about a third of it is dedicated to casting him in a negative light: how poorly he did in high school, college, and law school; allegations of plagiarism; implications of draft-dodging. I realize that all of this is well sourced, that we're allowed to include negative material in BLPs, and that want to avoid hagiography, but my concern is one of WP:NPOV and WP:WEIGHT, and it seems like this article perhaps gives unbalanced presentation of—can I call him "Joe"?—Joe's early life. For instance, he's claimed he went to law school on an academic scholarship and this is not mentioned in the article (I haven't tried to find verifiable sources to confirm or disconfirm this). Anyways, when I read that section, I say to myself "It really looks like whoever wrote this is trying to make Biden look bad," and that strikes me as problematic. What do others think? Yilloslime (t) 00:44, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

If you have notable and verifiable information on accomplishments he made during this time you're welcome to post them. I think his class rank and his problems with plagarism and possible draft dodging are significant. Regarding his claims about scholarships, he's been caught lying and distorting this record, as well as how many majors he's completed. In my opinion there should be an entire section on all the lies and mistatements he told in the VP debate. (Wallamoose (talk) 07:54, 5 October 2008 (UTC))

The full scholarship thing was perhaps not the best example. My point, however, is that we can exercise editorial discretion, and we're not obligated to include every verifiable, reliably sourced factoid that we can dig up, but we are obligated to write an NPOV article. And the balance of neutral, positive, and negative material included about him in this section seems off.Yilloslime (t) 16:26, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, that's a really neutral observation. By the way, "possible draft dodging"? Have you asserted this on Dick Cheney as well? Tvoz/talk 08:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC) Tvoz/talk 08:10, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, first let me say there's a well-established tradition now in American politics of national candidates having lousy or underperforming academic records. So it's not necessary a negative light! While some of us were hitting the books hard and puzzling out difficult material in a variety of subjects, others apparently were skipping all that, and instead figuring how how the political world works and would soon leapfrog us. Who knew? ;-)

But to this case, we have an organizational dilemma. His academic record and law school quasi-plagiarism both came up during his 1988 presidential bid and helped rapidly sink it. So therefore it's clearly notable to describe. Do we include it when it chronologically happened ("Early life and education" section) or when it later surfaced and became controversial ("1988" section)? We originally went with the second approach, but it proved difficult. Editors would see nothing about the plagiarism in the early section, think we were whitewashing the matter, and start adding duplicate material on it. So on balance, I think it's better the way it is now.

As for the draft and Vietnam, this was a crucial factor in that time that many had to face. We just describe what happened. Lots of people took student deferments, it's not a negative light. (The whole system was quite arguably unfair, but that's a subject for Conscription in the United States.) Lots of people were not involved in anti-war activities, that's not a negative light either, but merely an illustration of where he was at at the time. Wasted Time R (talk) 13:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I understand the organizational dilemma, but as it currently stands the duplication of the information between the two sections gives it more weight than seems justified. —KCinDC (talk) 16:35, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I hear ya, and I know how hard it can be figure out the best way to organize critical info. But with regard to just this section, and just his academic record, I still the section harps too much on his poor performance:

Biden attended the University of Delaware in Newark, where by his own later description he was a lazy student. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in history and political science in 1965, ranked 506th of 688 in his class. He went on to receive his Juris Doctor from Syracuse University College of Law in 1968, where by his own description he again underperformed and ranked 76th of 85 students.

Basically, the section keeps repeating that he did poorly, giving it undue emphasis. Do we really need to say both that "by his own later description he was a lazy student" at UD and that he ranked 506th of 668? And do we really need to say both that "by his own description he again underperformed" in law school and that ranked 76th of 85? Couldn't we just include either his ranks or his own descriptions of his performances? And the word "again," which I've highlighted above, really seems POV to me. It seems to function to just drive home his lackluster academic record in an unnecessary way. Yilloslime (t) 16:39, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

The "by his own later description he was a lazy student" was included by me for BLP reasons as Biden's explanation for his poor academic performance. Because otherwise, the reader may just conclude he was unable to do decent work at a college level. The specific undergraduate rank was included by me to combat those editors who wanted to harp on his really bad grades for his first three semesters there. See Talk:Joe_Biden/Archive_2#Plagiarism Mention in 1988 Campaign Section for some of the prior history on how the article got to this point. Wasted Time R (talk) 16:59, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I should add that I hadn't realized the 76/85 law school rank had been in the article twice. That's definitely a mistake. But I would be tempted to keep it in up front, and in the 1988 section just say that he hadn't been close to the top half of his class as claimed. Otherwise other editors will think it's missing from the article altogether as soon as they don't see it in "Early life and education", and add it there. Wasted Time R (talk) 18:00, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

(ec)I've gone ahead made a change, which I think leaves the essential in content intact, while resolving the over-emphasis issue described above. W/r/t "by his own later description he was a lazy student", would not object to putting it back in if the "ranked 506th of 688 in his class," statement was removed. Anyways, I think—or at least I hope—that the fact that he went to law school speaks for itself, and most people will understand that you've got to be pretty smart to get accepted. IMHO, the section looks a little more balanced now, (though, there're still the paragraphs on draft dodging and plagiarism to deal with) and as long as editors aren't harping on his really bad grades, I think this is an improvement. Yilloslime (t) 18:03, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

for the record, I fully support this edit by Wasted Time R. Yilloslime (t) 22:31, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

edit request

On October 5, 2008 he suspended his campaigning activities due to the death of his mother-in-law. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackiehal (talk • contribs)

Source? --Evb-wiki (talk) 21:02, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I've added it. Wasted Time R (talk) 21:19, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Also with regard to his current VP bid, the only information given about his debate with Palin is that it happened on October 2. Is there any reason why it doesn't say that he is considered to have won the debate? This is well sourced over at United States vice-presidential debate, 2008 and Sarah Palin, and seems salient enough to mention here. Yilloslime (t) 22:40, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

I went ahead and added a sentence about his performance lifted almost verbatim from Sarah Palin. Yilloslime (t) 22:47, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

misplacement of symbols

the () at the pronounciation also covers his birth date. It should only be covering part of it.