It has been said that every politician has a “log cabin” story – a Horatio Alger-style rise from rags to riches. A correlation suggests that the more successful a politician becomes, the more humble and challenging his or her early life. President Biden is not an exception to that tradition, but he has stretched it beyond all credulity.
Let us examine the legend as we have been told it.
According to the narrative, Little Joe Biden grew up in an impoverished family – the type Dickens captured in his novels. His formative years were spent at the kitchen table absorbing his father’s words of wisdom. We know that from the many, many times Biden refers to those kitchen table conversations.
(I cannot imagine Biden spending so much time at the kitchen table unless he habitually refused to eat his spinach. But I digress.)
It is those early years that informed Biden on the plight of the common worker – a respect for the man and woman who toils in the factories … behind the retail counter … or on construction sites.
(It always seemed to me that Biden did not have as much interest in non-union workers –and certainly not those who had some measure of business success. But that is another issue, and I digress again.)
Biden’s autobiographical legacy as the friend of the working man earned him the moniker of “lunch bucket Joe.”
Biden often refers to his years in Scranton. He recently said that the 2024 election was between Scranton and Palm Beach – where President Trump Lives. That is to epitomize the Biden story – that of a man of humble beginning whose myopic – or at least major – concern is the wellbeing of the foundational working class. He is the man from scrappy Scranton.
Whoa!! That may be a nice story, but it is NOT the history of the Joe Biden we know as President of the United States. No. No. No.
Biden’s father had a number of jobs. He worked for a company that produced sealant for ships during World War II. He was a manager at an auto dealership and then in real estate. Unable to find a job in Scranton, Pennsylvania – where Biden was born in 1943 — the family moved to Delaware for employment in 1953, when the future President was 10 years old.
(Oh wait! All that talk about Scranton, and Biden was out of there by the age of 10? He hardly passed what is known as the age of reason and only a few years beyond early childhood amnesia. A little test: Go back to your own age of 10 – about fifth grade — and see how much you can remember of specific events.)
Before leaving Scranton, Biden attended St. Paul’s Elementary School – a private Catholic school. In Delaware, he attended St. Helena School – another private Catholic School. For high school, Biden attended Archmere Academy, an elitist exclusive (and expensive) private Catholic preparatory school. Just to get a relative sense of it, the current one-year tuition at Archmere is $34,000 – plus other fees including uniforms.
Biden got his undergraduate degree from the University of Delaware and a juris degree in law from Syracuse University. That is when the Biden biography first ran into credibility problems.
When campaigning, Biden often said that he was named the outstanding student in Political Science (untrue), and that he graduated in the upper quarter of his law class (untrue. He was in the lower quarter.) He claimed that he received a full scholarship. (Untrue. He got a small partial scholarship.)
Upon graduation from college, Biden served a short time as a public defender. At the same time, he joined the Democratic Party and started running for a seat on the New Castle County Board, which he won in 1970. After which he was elected to the United States Senate in 1972.
So, there you have it. For the past 52 years, “lunch bucket Joe” has operated in the sancta sanctorum of the Washington political establishment – in which he has risen in power, prestige and profit. Biden was not a product of Scranton, Pennsylvania. He and his family were never destitute. He is the product of an expensive and privileged private education.
Biden has become a multimillionaire from public service – and has enriched his family with millions of additional dollars based on their association to him and his various offices. Not that there is anything wrong with that — unless we discover there is.
Biden’s history may be apocryphal – that is bullsh*t with a college education. His “log cabin” story is entirely concocted. Or maybe it is just good old fashion malarky. But, he is not – nor ever has been — “lunch bucket, Joe.”
So, there tis.