I’m sorry to hear that Joe Biden’s cancer has progressed that far. I seem to recall that when cancer reaches the bones, if not sooner, there is a lot of pain; if this is happening to him now, he may already be under palliative care. He always seemed to me a decent sort of person, especially as politicians go, although of course not perfect.
I’m due for another semi-annual visit to my urologist, we’re keeping an eye on a couple of (so far) non-cancerous lesions in my prostate. I have sometimes grudged the time and attention and MRIs required to keep that eye on things, but this is a good reminder of what the alternative might be.
My wife’s stepmother died from metastatic breast cancer, almost 20 years ago; it had spread to her bones, and yes, her last months involved heavy-duty pain medications.
I still have a mental image of Joe Biden gazing up at the fireworks celebration after his election with a sort of childlike admiration. He’s a good man in every way, the exact opposite of the Orange Menace and his criminal cronies. Obama did well in selecting him, and could not have predicted the debilitating life circumstances that followed.
Why do horrible things happen to the best people? I’m sure that Hitler was in fine health when he finally shot himself.
Yes, when my husband was diagnosed with myeloma, it started with pain from the tumor in his spine, and prostate cancer was one of the possibilities they investigated. He was in a lot of pain, and unlike everyone else, cancer doctors are pretty generous with the opioids. But he needed a lot of help with the pain for quite a while. (He got off the opioids pretty quickly, because they are scary. But he was on tylenol and used heating pads and needed a lot of physical accommodations for the bone pain.)
I hope Biden’s doctors are good at managing pain. I hope he has some happiness in his remaining time, too.
Agree completely. Trump will do anything he can do to shit on this man, both because it plays well to the MAGA base, and also because Trump desperately needs someone to deflect blame towards.
Biden is about as American as one can be. He loves his country deeply and wanted the best for all Americans. He is everything that Trump is not.
I’ve watched Joe Biden for a lifetime, and I agree, he is one of the best politicians we’ve ever had. He worked his ass off for this country, whether as Senator, Vice President or President. He always cared about regular people.
He made missteps. To this day, I remember how he was excoriated for plagiarizing a portion of some speech he made as a senator when he was very young. Oh, my god. It was in the news for ages, he used someone else’s words and failed to attribute them to the original author! He was schlocky and corny and had difficulty abandoning his Old School persona. But I never doubted his patriotism or his commitment to better the circumstances of American citizens – all of them – and his country.
When he took over from Trump 1.0, he worked his ass off, and he was exactly the right person for the job. His years of experience caused him to understand what could realistically be accomplished working within the law and the confines of a legislature that was not in his camp. He knew how to reach across the aisle, and he frankly got way more done than I ever imagined he could have under the circumstances.
It breaks my heart there is so little recognition of it, and there will be no decency coming from the current regime to honor his life or his contributions when the time comes. He deserves much better treatment than he will ever be given.
It was actually when he was running for the Democratic nomination for President in 1987. There were several instances when he used passages from others’ speeches in his own; sometimes he credited them, sometimes he didn’t. As per Wikipedia:
In retrospect, it’s kind of small potatoes, compared to what Trump has been doing, but it still wasn’t a good look.
Oh, I agree. Thanks for correcting my faulty recollection. But yeah, compared to the shit that’s going on now, it’s almost quaint. Kind of like Watergate.
A fine tribute. His obituary writer could do no better.
Joe has never been my favorite politician. I’ve somewhat held against him his choices and words in the Anita Hill matter. And–perhaps a personal prejudice–I tend to feel more warmth toward the intellectual pols than toward the ‘salt of the earth’ types like Biden.
But I wish him future days that are as happy and pain-free as is possible.
Oh, don’t get me wrong. He’s was never my favorite politician. I’ve always gone for the Al Gores, the John Kerrys, the Hillary Clintons. People who drill down on policy and really understand what it takes to effect change in a complex system with so many competing interests. Not nearly as easy as many wish or naively believe it to be. But despite the folksy exterior, Biden had that insight, too.
And while I totally get and agree with you that his actions during the Anita Hill debacle were – let’s not mince words here – shameful, there are few politicians whose careers have spanned such a lengthy period who have not taken stances that, when viewed in the rear view mirror, are cringe worthy. I hold Biden more responsible than anyone else for putting the cretin who is Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court.
The only thing I can reluctantly say in Biden’s defense is, we are all products of our time. Anita Hill was a trailblazer. And Biden always triangulated on how the political winds were blowing before choosing a course of action. No one of that time could imagine a Supreme Court justice would deviate so wholly and corruptly away from their core ethics and obligations, even if he did have to live the rest of his life with women who will forever endure the mental image of pubic hairs on Coke cans. My, but don’t we know better now?
If it makes you feel any better, Hitler was in terrible health throughout most of his life, but especially near the end of his life. Increasingly paranoid; addicted to amphetamines; taking as many as 90 separate medications throughout WWII (most ineffective or actively harmful); experiencing chronic stomach problems; experiencing tremors and difficulty walking, tentatively identified as symptoms of the early stages of Parkinson’s; and still suffering from the rupture of both eardrums and the removal of hundreds of wooden splinters from a bomb blast the previous year.
Trump look quite unhealthy Chronic Venous Insufficiency, Skin and hand bruising, Bad diet and lack of exercise. If the rules permitted I would wish him he worst of health
Yes, to our infinite regret. During the Anita Hill hearings era there was definitely an expectation that SCOTUS Justices were respectable people.
And I basically agree with your assessment of Joe. He probably deserves more credit than he currently gets (though of course in comparison with The Thing, he looks stellar.)
He was, in many ways, the anti-Trump. Another old white guy but one with character, experience, empathy and love for his country - by all accounts a genuinely nice guy. He didn’t continuously demand the spotlight; he worked quietly and behind the scenes to much greater effect that he was given credit for. He cared about inclusion and had no problem working with people of different genders and backgrounds than his own. He represented much that was good about America.
And then we elected the epitome of the stereotype of the absolute worst of America. WTF is wrong with us?