With thanks to DUer Jemaya! Biden: Dowd made the whole thing up. (Hillary Group)

[DeepModem Mom]

Vice President Joe Biden used Sunday's "60 Minutes" interview to dispel several rumors about his deliberations on launching a 2016 presidential run — including one that helped kick-start a new round of speculation earlier this summer.

Biden told CBS' Norah O'Donnell in the interview that his late son, Beau, who died this May at the age of 46, did not urge his father to run from his death bed.

Biden said his two sons, Beau and Hunter, have always been his closest advisers.

"Some people have written that, you know, Beau on his death bed said, 'Dad, you've got to run,' and, there was this sort of 'Hollywood moment' that — you know, nothing like that ever, ever happened," Biden said. "Beau from the time he was in his 30s — or actually his late 20s — he and Hunter were one of my two most reliable advisors. And, Beau all along thought that I should run and I could win."

"But," Biden added, "there was not what was sort of made out as kind of this Hollywood-esque thing that at the last minute Beau grabbed my hand and said, 'Dad, you've got to run, like, win one for the Gipper.' It wasn't anything like that."

Reports of that "Hollywood" moment first prominently surfaced in an early-August column from The New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Dowd reported that when Beau Biden "realized he wasn't going to make it," he asked his father to chat.

"Beau was losing his nouns and the right side of his face was partially paralyzed. But he had a mission: He tried to make his father promise to run, arguing that the White House should not revert to the Clintons and that the country would be better off with Biden values," Dowd wrote.

Dowd reported that Hunter Biden had also encouraged his father to run, telling him, "Dad, it's who you are."...

http://read.bi/1Rw5Nq0 via @bi_politics (Business Insider)

[William769]

1. Kick & highly recommended!

[Thinkingabout]

2. Maureen Dowd is not a friend of the Clintons, she owes Biden a big apology.

She is a good rag writer, one you read the headlines in the grocery store and walk on. Shameful she took the opportunity to write a lie about Beau Biden.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. Dowd isn't a friend of anybody.

She likes to make it look like she's the ultimate insider, and she specializes in snark - when she isn't making shit up.

[Thinkingabout]

5. Agree

[redstateblues]

8. She is detestable

[enid602]

4. Maureen

I thought that old witch was embellishing all along. But to say that Biden's dying son begged him to run to make us safe from the Clintons. Too much, even for her.

[Jemaya]

6. You're welcome

[Cha]

7. This is really good to hear.. so many people were dissing VP Biden for leaking it and it was a LIE.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

9. I always thought Joe had too much class to have done that.

And I'm not at all surprised to find it came from the poison pen of Maureen Dowd.

[Cha]

10. I did, too.. TVO. It actually hurt to see all the diss.

[Laffy Kat]

11. Stopped reading Dowd a long time ago.

Her time and come and gone.

[MADem]

12. I watched that interview and I started speculating about motives and goals.

I don't think Dowd made that up--I think someone FED it to her, to make her look like an asshole.

She, in effect, in her eagerness to "get" the story--and "get" Hillary Clinton by pushing for an opponent to challenge her from within the party structure who had some gravitas/visibility--got tunnel vision. She didn't check and re-check. She went from collecting facts to crafting bullshit.

I think it's telling that Biden left her to twist in the wind for weeks before he called her on her bullshit.

The Clintons and the Bidens used to vacation together, a long time ago. Notwithstanding professional differences on the job (most notably, the Bin Ladin raid) I think HRC and JRB are fond of one another.

It's entirely possible that Biden was "eating up the news cycle" during the height of the Benghazi Bullshit to keep some of the heat off of HRC--in effect, serving as a stalking horse to provide cover for the candidate that he and POTUS are actually (but shhhhh....don't tell anyone) backing.

[Cha]

13. I like your analysis.. very much, MADem.

[riversedge]

16. One of my first thought when I saw the story today was-Why did Biden let this go on and on for

so long. My thought was more unflattering--Joe let it go on because he did want to run. And he has wanted the presidency for a long time. The story benefited him. I really do think that still-although your theory is very plausible.

[MADem]

19. Oh sure--he did have ambition. I think, though, that as he went around

to donors and friends, one by one, they said "Are you serious, Joe? Three strikes and you're out. Think of your legacy. You're a mensch, right now. You're beloved. You can rest on a What Might Have Been aura. If you run, and get your ass handed to you, you'll be a schmuck. Don't go down that road." I think he realized this early on, and the strategy morphed from "Let's see if I can do it," to "Let's see if I can use this to provide cover for a (shhhhh) POTUS-preferred candidate while maintaining a presumed neutral distance."

Further, it was Joe Biden who--some years ago, when folks were talking about HRC running again, and his plans, was the guy who said "I wouldn't want to be the one to stand in the way of history," meaning that he'd be regarded as a spoiler-ass if he tried to deny the most qualified woman in politics the opportunity to smash the glass ceiling.

I think there were a lot of emotional considerations happening, but the end result is this:

1. Maureen Dowd has been NEUTERED as a credible source with regard to "insider" Democratic politics.

2. Biden keeps his "Nice Guy" reputation and goes out On Top--a party leader and influencer, an elder statesmen; Jill can keep teaching the full schedule she signed up for a month ago without missing a beat, the "problems" that are not discussed but are just below the surface of any potential Biden candidacy are avoided--and those problems are NOT insignificant;

3. Much nasty airtime that would have been devoted to "WAAAAAH EMAIL BENGHAZI!!!!!" was instead dedicated to "Will he, or won't he?" thus greatly benefitting HRC.

When the Kerry Washington-Greg Kinnear film "CONFIRMATION" comes out next year, Biden will be taking some heat. It will be less heat, now that he's not running for POTUS.

[katmille]

18. You are being too kind to Maureen Dowd

Who in reality is just a gossip columnist who hates the Clintons and is not too fond of President Obama. She also has had some not-to-favorable things to say about George W Bush. Basically, she is a snarky, negative sensationalist who believes her readers want to read only dirt so she tries to find it or makes it up in the case of Joe Biden.
I wish she would just be honest and say: "I hate Hillary Clinton, now here is my column for the week." At least we could read on if we choose to, knowing that we are in for some biased tidbits of non-truths.

[MADem]

20. Oh, I'm not being kind at all, I assure you. She IS an asshole, and someone in

the PRESIDENT's orbit, with the approval and understanding of the VICE PRESIDENT, quite likely, fed her that line of horseshit with the very full expectation that she'd run with it like the vicious shithead that she is.

It was a PERFECT con game. The story gets out there, the VP doesn't say a word, people assume that silence is consent, the rumors build, and build, and build, and then, like a massive zit in the bathroom mirror, one day it is POPPED. By the very guy who would KNOW.

And Maureen Dowd ends up with zit-smuck all over her face.

[katmille]

24. My mistake

I just meant that you might be giving her an out. I see now that you weren't. Seems we both feel the same way about Ms. Dowd.

[oasis]

27. It sure makes sense to me.

[msrizzo]

14. Apparently he does talk to her from time to time

In his grief he probably told her about Beau's last days, which is where she got the details about how he looked and sounded. And the witch added the part about the dying request. She is contemptible.

[MADem]

21. Who suggested that? Him? or HER?

If he "talked to her from time to time" then SURELY he would take her call--you know, just to clear things up. Obviously, she's not palsy-walsy enough with the guy to ask him to verify a straightforward story. "Mr. Vice President, I've been told by a source that your son said "X" shortly before he passed--is this accurate?"

I'll bet he's given her as much "personal attention" as he would anyone he glad-handed on a rope line. She doesn't "know" him. If she did, she would have been able to verify the allegations before she breathlessly rushed to print.

I think someone--not Biden, but someone close to his staff-- planted a seed. That seed has, in effect, grown into a poison ivy that will sideline Mean Old Maureen for the duration. Good thing, too--she is without shame. There's nothing more satisfied than a little well-deserved kneecapping for a shit-stirrer.

[stonecutter357]

15. K&R!

[Narusto]

17. Dean Baquet defends Dowd's story

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/10/26/nyts-baquet-pushes-back-at-biden-comments/

[MADem]

22. Sorry-no sale. EVERYTHING points to Dowd as being the source of the story.

Any media that picked up the story was riffing off HER report. She gilded the lily, she boasted about it to colleagues, and she's been caught out.

From your link:

Though the Erik Wemple Blog cannot certify Baquet’s assertion that “every news organization in America” confirmed Dowd’s reporting, similar reports did crop up elsewhere. Weeks before Dowd disclosed this moment deep into her Aug. 1 column, the Wall Street Journal’s Colleen McCain Nelson and Peter Nicholas broke the story: “Before his death last month, elder son Beau Biden encouraged his father to get into the race, people familiar with the matter said,” wrote the Journal reporters. Co-Managing Editor of Bloomberg Politics John Heilemann, who’d profiled Biden in 2012, endorsed the story line in early August and said in a subsequent MSNBC appearance, “He always wanted his father to run for president again, that meant a lot to Joe Biden back then, it meant a lot to him in that death bed moment which is true and did happen.”

Then there’s Politico. Edward-Isaac Dovere reported in early October that Biden himself had told the story to Dowd. “Exclusive: Biden himself leaked word of his son’s dying wish,” read the headline, itself an implicit confirmation of Dowd’s reporting. Or near-confirmation — Dovere wrote that the vice president wasn’t the most consistent storyteller: “Before that moment and since, Biden has told the Beau story to others. Sometimes details change — the setting, the exact words.”

Had Dowd included the fact that Beau Biden had long championed for his father’s presidential ambitions, perhaps she wouldn’t now be at the center of this hubbub. “It’s hard to imagine some version of this is not true,” says Baquet. (Though Dowd is part of the Times’ opinion/editorial operation, Baquet’s news division did cite the column in a story on Biden)

Now, the only question is, did Biden ask a staffer to plant that story to screw with her, or did a staffer plant it on his/her own? I go with the FORMER.

The only way Dovere (or others) could have "known" that "Biden" leaked the story is because DOWD insisted (because she thought the staffer who stuck it to her was reputable) that this was the case. His source sure as hell wasn't Biden.

This is what happens when reporters get too chummy, and write stories amongst themselves, instead of actually smiling and dialing and wearing out a little shoe leather to get an accurate account.

Don't defend that woman--she is beneath contempt. And welcome to DU.....

[greatlaurel]

23. Dowd fell for this hook, line and sinker. More importantly it shows Dem Party leadership is fighting

My opinion is this was a very carefully crafted and well thought out bit of political action. Dowd was chosen to blunt her effectiveness for the right wingers she works for. No one will pay much attention to anything else she writes for the rest of the campaign. This was brilliant strategy. Only a vile human being would write such an article while the Bidens were still in mourning, and so Dowd has been exposed for all to see. She did not have to take bait, but has now been shown to be the worthless and hateful person she really is.
VP Biden is a great person. He has just demonstrated to us all that some in the Democratic leadership are tired of the outrageous right wing propaganda tactics that have been used to push the right wing policies that are killing our country. This shows that such tactics will no longer be tolerated. It is a very good sign for 2016. The right wing media is in a panic, just look at that claptrap from Baquet trying to justify the foulness from the Times and Dowd.

Joe Biden is working for the American people and for the future, of not just his grandchildren, but everyone. 2016 is the most important election since 1932. Joe Biden knows this and will do whatever he needs to do to help the Democrats retain the White House and win back many statehouses, as well. What a brave and selfless man Joe Biden has become.

The Vice President knows who the real enemies of the American people are. No wonder the right wing is in a frenzy over Hillary Clinton's campaign. Many chickens are going to come home to roost.

Good post.

Thanks!

[MADem]

25. I think it shows that Dem leadership is more united than we're supposed to believe.

I think Biden let that bullshit story ride to take heat off the Benghazi-Email lies from the right wing. The "Will He Run?" story ate up the news cycle for weeks, right as the GOP were doing a full-court press against Clinton. Fortunately, her testimony was powerful, she kicked GOP ass, and then, after that was said and done, Biden came out and backed away from the prospect of running.

There was clearly Democratic coordination there. It was subtle, but it was there.

[greatlaurel]

26. I agree, it was subtle, but highly effective.

It gives great credit to Biden. The creation from Dowd did suck up a lot of media attention. It is just the sort of nonsense the media love. They do not have to do anything except quote each other. It does demonstrate that the Villagers are lazy and just not real bright.

Biden allowed this to play out despite the pain it had to cause him, for the long term good of the country. It does appear that some of the Democratic Party leadership are going to be more aggressive in 2016 and that will be vital in winning.

Here in the Midwest, the newspapers and local TV ignored Clinton's testimony on Thursday. Before the testimony, the email and Benghazi were mentioned daily. It demonstrates these media outlets are only concerned in putting out right wing memes and completely ignoring facts. It was really stunning how silent these media outlets were on the complete crushing of the GOP by Clinton in her testimony. She was absolutely amazing. Yesterday, I heard the new right wing meme is now that the Democrats on the panel spent too much time defending Clinton. The right wingers are clearly admitting the only people who could ask a decent question were the Democrats on the panel. Wish this could come back to haunt the right wing even more.

Not sure which was the bigger idiot, Jordan or Roby.

Love that picture!