>> you take the single-payer out of the discussion, do you stop using those words per se? just talk about like medicare for all, health care for all? universal health or have so many connotations. >> you do. and i think, i want to say we, i'm not talking about myself, but advocates for that type of reform. you need to take a look at not just maybe so single force -- focus on single player. there are a lot of ways to get to universal coverage other than that. canada has a single-payer system. canadians like it a lot. wouldn't work your? maybe, maybe not. that a system like france or germany has might work better with the population we have here. so i guess what i'm saying is there are other ways to get to

the ultimate objective and maybe just single-payer. so i think that is something to consider. see in your mind what the ultimate goal is an figure out how to get there. >> thank you. >> thank you for everything you are doing. i don't mean to be naïve, but since you worked with all these executives, i always wondered about the mindset of the insurance industry. i understand want to maximize profits, but i remember there was former executive, a woman who testified who said she denied the claim and the person died and then she got rewarded for. she kept getting promotions. at the people in the health care industry, to some of them actually feel the system is the best possible system or they are helping people? i mean, i wonder about the mindset of people who can just deny health care to sick people or come up with things like

preexisting conditions. it's kind of this insidious way to deny people who needed the most in the first place. do you have any contact with your former colleagues, and what do they have to say? >> to answer the first part of your question, there are a lot of employees who do good work. and i felt i was doing good work in a sort of things i was doing. sometimes more than just individuals. but what became unique for me is that as i got promotions, as i became head of corporate indications i was able to see things the folks at lower levels don't necessary see about how insurance companies make money. and i also was in a unique position to serve on a lot of trade association committees. my employers represented to these front groups that we developed over the years. so i saw things that most people do not seek who work for these companies. most people are not involved in

denying care necessarily, but they do their job, usually nice people. but they don't necessarily have the ability to see the big picture and to see exactly other company or the industry has been operating and how it has almost an intractable problem in this country. there's a point i do want to make do. during the debate, and we will hear this, we have heard for many years and we'll hear for years to come, if you have greater government involvement in health care, you'll have a government bureaucrat standing between a patient between his and her doctor. what we have now is a corporate bureaucrat who is answerable to wall street. i can do you many, many stories, and you have heard many of them. they make life-and-death decisions and they are just -- they have an m.d. after their name, in some cases they are nurses, but they are just as

much a corporate employee as i was. they know that they have as much responsibility to help meet wall street's expectations as i did. that's a truth into as a corporate employee. you know that you have to meet wall street's expectations everything less or your stock options will go down. if wall street doesn't like her numbers, your stock will go down and then your stock options will go down with it. >> what about your former colleagues? >> there are a lot of people who worked for the companies i worked for gore no longer there, and i've been in touch with many, many of them. there are certainly a lot of e-mails and economy. people who are still in industry, no, they don't. although i've seen one of my former colleagues at the meetings of the national health, national association of health commissioners. i am a consumer representative, and they are interesting meetings. when they get together, they meet three times a year as a

group, there are about 20 of us were consumer representative. there are more than 1000 representatives of industry their, waiting to pounce on them as they come out of the commissioners out of the meeting to lobbying. we are responsible for developing the regulations, or the profession that requires insurers spend 80-85%. at that meeting i did see some of my former colleagues, and i came to me big complementary. >> i'm with physicians for national health program. nice to see you again. glad for audio done to advance the cause of universal care. i would disagree that we have not been outsmarted by the industry. we just don't have the money. we have 18,000 members, and with that and other organizations actually majority of americans are already for improved.

also it seems to me i think you would agree, but basically insurance companies know their days are named. they know they're not doing anything that the government can do, and cheaper. we are already running a canadian style system because women of people on medicare, so we are already doing it. they know it. they know they're not there providing health care. they know that people want it. they know we have unemployment going up in people losing their jobs, and industry not wanting to cover health insurance therefore. all those forces are going towards them being out. so they will squeak out a few more beans of profit and hurt, and eventually they know their days are numbered. and so we have a league of women voters of supporters, we just had the first governor elect of vermont who is for single-payer. so, the point is, how much

longer do you think that the industry will stay on? >> i do agree with your premise. i do think that the big cartel of for-profit insurers that dominate the industry right now, they can't stay in business for some time longer with this legislation, and, frankly, this legislation will dwindle out some of the bad actors, some of the companies in particular specialized in the benefit plans. and it will ultimately benefit some other big players more than a small part because they do so have the economies of scale to compete. that was a trend that was going on but with or without reform. with reform, with this reform, if it's implemented as congress intended there will be significant regulation on these companies, to the point that their margins will be squeezed.

it's inevitable. there are some things i think they can do to be profitable for some time to come, but they will no longer be able to shift costs as much as they want. there's going to be a limit on how much people would have to spend out of their own pocket for insurance. all of these things will depress their margins, and i think that these companies will move onto other things eventually. their shareholders will demand they do that. when i joined humana in 1993, the industry looked very, very different. humanity was largely known as a hospital company. it decided two years after i joined this been always hospitals to focus on managed care because it saw that as the biggest opportunity for profits. and when i went to cigna, it was one of a handful of very large multi-bike insurance companies, said. they have a property and casualty division. they had a financial services

division, as did aetna. they got rid of those to focus on health care. you never heard of wellpoint out and now they're the top to play. my point is this been enormous change and evolution in health insurance industry. that will continue. and i think a lot of these big companies will decide that they can make money in other ways. cigna, for example, has a big international presence and it makes a lot of money by selling supplemental products in countries that have a nationalized health care system, but they get so problems like cancer insurance as they do in china. i think that we will seek -- they will look at other ways to make money, and five years from now, certainly tenure so now i think the landscape looked very, very different. >> thank you very much. >> we've been talking about the

reform agenda with respect to increasing access to affordable care for as many people as possible, and how that counters -- encounters the profit-seeking notice of the insurance industry. but another key aspect of reform has been cost control, looking at the increasing share of the economy of health care costs represent. and i'm wondering if the health care industry and the lobby has looked beyond its short-term profit interest to the longer-term and considered how it can maybe contribute constructively to how we get a better handle on costs, and how they might contribute to that. is there anything constructive in their thinking, or is it truly short-term? >> they do try, i will give them that, but a lot of it is rhetoric. they talked about, they're trying to shift the debate

during, you know, the discussion during the debate on health care reform think we need to focus on the real drivers of health care, inflation. that being rapidly rising costs of care in the provision of care, and also the rising utilization of care. it's true, we are getting older as a society, and older folks require more care. so demographically we are going to be spending more money. so we need to do a lot to address rising costs, and the industry knows that. they have lost some of their leverage that they had during the beginning and heyday of managed care. if you recall that era, they were putting people in fairly restrictive networks of providers, and the restrictions were pretty -- there's a backlash for consumers and providers to the point that they had to change their business model. they had to open those networks. they develop products like point

of service plans and ppos as a result of that backlash. as they did that they lost some of their leverage with providers. hospitals and physician groups began to consolidate. they needed to a bigger numbers to be able to have more clout at the negotiating table with a managed care companies. so we have seen in self-defense, hospitals merging and become a much bigger. they are better able to stand toe to toe at the negotiating table with insurers. so we've got a situation that providers doubt in many cases, particularly in california, often have the upper hand. so it's a very different world. the techniques of managed care, there are no longer there. which is why one of the reasons why we have their business model is based on shifting more of the cost of care to us. that is what -- they think, they

say we have more skin in the game if we have more of an understanding of cost of care and requirement that we pay more for care that will be more judicious shoppers of care. that is not really true for someone who has a chronic condition. you really can be a shopper for health care. >> to have a few on, move away from fee-for-service court accountable care? >> there is a lot of that. there is movement toward that. and the legislation certainly has a lot of support for the new model. it sounds a lot programs. and also calls for funding for more nurse practitioners. there are a lot of things in the legislation that, frankly, can change a health care is delivered. and we will need that as more people coming to coverage and are seeking care. so nurses will play a big role.

>> the insurance company wouldn't miss a post that kind of movement? >> i don't think they would. you want to be involved in it. they are certainly in favor of almost anything in favor that helps them save money or to avoid paying. they will be partners. >> thank you. >> wendel, thank you very much. [applause] >> wendell potter is a former head of corporate indications and chief corporate spokesman for the health ensure cigna. it's also been added to mutations at humana corporate and director of public relations and advertising. he testified against the business practices of the health care industry before the senate congress committee back in june 2009. to find out more visit bk, wendellpotter.com. >> david axe has covered severah different wars and effective as a freelancer who worked for afg.

c-span and in iraq and afghanistan. david axe, where else have you worked?non, chad,east li lebanon, chad, somalia,soma congo, office malik goes chasing fo pirates. i might be forgetting a few. fe- nicaragua. here and there. boring. >> guest: right. the title's meant to be somewhat ironic but not entirely. war, the modern experience of war, low intensity warfare is a lot of sitting around. it's 99% waiting and tedium and bore dumb punctuated by 1% of sheer terror. i think that describes the experience of the typical soldier, but it's the same for reporters, too, between the red tape and the logistic and the distances you have to travel, the logistics of being a reporter, arranging interviews and negotiating languages and cultural differences. you spend a lot of time weeding and maneuvering for the golden

nuggets of excitement or the tiny little gems of a good story. >> host: and this is done much like, as a comic book -- >> guest: right. >> host: in a sense, a nonfiction comic book, and you write, i love how war made you appreciate the little things. you said coming home was like popping ec that si. what do you mean by that? >> guest: i've actually never done ecstasy, but i imagine it feels ecstatic. you spend time roaming around a place like somalia or chad, and it puts into perspective, i don't know, what we have here in the united states and what we call problems. so one reason i enjoy my job as a freelance war correspondent, or enjoy's not the right word, one of the reasons i find it fulfilling is it contextualizes the rest of my life. and i've come away from my work

as appreciating being an american more than before i did this kind of thing. >> host: when you read your book, it doesn't sound like you could stay in the states very long before you had to go back. >> guest: well, that's the irony. when you need that contrast between home life and life in some conflict zone in order to appreciate the home life, and you have to keep going back to the conflict zone in order to keep that and to maintain that contrast so that you can, i don't know, that's the only way i can find peace and satisfaction was to move between these two extremes. the one made the other make sense. >> host: david axe, what work did you do for c-span? this. >> guest: i shot video and have done voiceover and studio interviews from and about the iraq war and the afghanistan war, piracy, the conflict in central africa or conflicts in central africa, and that might be all. i think so, yeah.

>> host: ptsd? this. >> guest: myself? not formally diagnosed. i had a rather hairy experience in chad in the summer of 2008 and came home feeling not quite like myself. and managed to, you know, through the help of family and good friends and a lot of beer managed to right myself, i guess. i don't think that the trauma i've experienced compares to what an american soldier who spends 15 months on deployment in afghanistan or iraq, my experiences don't compare to that, but sure, sure, i've had some stress. >> host: we're going to put the numbers up on the screen in case you would like to talk with david axe about how journalists cover war and how it effected them. these are pictures here, these are drawings of when david axe went home to detroit. and what i noted on these is that you slept in quite late every morning, and you didn't

look like you were terribly thrilled about anything. >> guest: you mentioned ptsd. probably the worst i've had was in 2008. prior to that i was in somalia in late 2007 and also a very difficult place to work. and came away from that, i don't know, with a rather bleak outlook and crashed, i guess you could say. i needed, i needed some time. and i took that by moving back home, you know? a 30-year-old man moving back home with mom and dad, and i did nothing for as long as i could stand it. and i think had i not done that, things would have been a lot worse. so, yeah, i slept in. played video games. [laughter] >> host: what were some of the worst experiences you had? this. >> guest: i was briefly kidnapped twice in chad. actually not covered in the book. hinted at at the very end of the book. in somalia i spent some time in the after guy ya refugee camp

with, among -- surrounded by one of the world's worst humanitarian crises, made friends with somali reporters some of whom have since been seriously hurt or killed. that has been very trying. iraq and afghanistan there is always those bursts of extreme violence that rattle you. i think in the balance, though, somalia and chad have been my, the most difficult places to cover. personally and professionally. >> host: how did you get started in this line of work? >> guest: in 2004 and 2005 i was, i was a full-time political reporter in columbia, south carolina, for the local free times newspaper. and if war is boring, then peace is way worse. and it was driving me nuts sitting in on county council meetings and things like ordinances. so i had an opportunity to embed with the national guard in early 2005, took it, realized not only

could i enjoy it, but i could do it. so i quit my job and began freelancing from conflict zones full time. >> host: 202 is the area code, 585-3885 in the east and central time zones, 585-3886 for those of you in the mountain and pacific time zones. where was the last place you've been? >> guest: i just got back from congo, and the artist on "war is boring," matt, he and i are going to collaborate on an entire graphic novel -- >> host: novel? >> guest: right. well, it's nonfiction, a nonfiction comic book about congress go. >> host: why? >> guest: congo's probably the worst war that most americans don't know anything about. no one is exactly sure about the numbers, but in the past 15 years at least 700,000 people have died in several overlapping conflicts. it's a gigantic country, lots of problems, and a country that really matters to the developed

world. leaving aside humanitarian issues which, of course, matter on their own, congo's the source of horse -- most of the earth's rare minerals. without congo, we wouldn't have this high-tech society that we have. so conflict in congo should matter a lot more to americans than it does. we want to draw some attention to that. >> host: in iraq and in afghanistan, were you embedded with the military? what was your experience working with the military? >> >> guest: i've had really good experiences, i've had really bad experiences. the u.s. military is a vast organization, and everything sort of turns over every three years so it's a different cast of characters. once i inadvertently reported on a secret technology in iraq and was detained and then booted out of the country by a very irate u.s. army. that was probably the low point, but there have been high points as well. i've witnessed incredible bravery and sacrifice even on my

behalf by soldiers in iraq and afghanistan. >> host: how did you find that secret technology? the u.s. army, and i was working as a freelancer for wired at the time. i said to this lieutenant, what's that? and he said, oh, that's a blah, blah, blah, and i said, oh, that's interesting, tell me more. so i was taking notes on this bit of technology, lo and behold, it was classified. i didn't think that, apparently the lieutenant didn't know that and, yeah, it got bad real fast. [laughter] >> host: david axe is our guest, "war is boring" is the book. fredericks burg, virginia, you're on the air. please go ahead. >> caller: hi, mr. axe. you commented on it -- >> host: fredericks berg, you with us? >> caller: yes, i'm here, can you hear me? >> host: yes, go ahead. >> caller: i wish you could expand a little bit, i've always been interested in how the unique military cultures of the

marines, the army, and the special operating forces, what differences you may have seen in the fact that there's three branches that are doing this kind of work. >> guest: i don't really have special forces, but i have worked with the marines and the army, the air force and the navy and even the coast guard. i guess it's cliche, but honestly working with the marines is the best experience. there's a kind of culture of accountability and sacrifice in the marine corps that, while present in the other branches, is amplified in the marines. i guess they're able to hone that in a better way than with a vast organization like the u.s. army. so the marines have always taken really, really good care of me, and i'm grateful for that. >> host: emporia, virginia, you're on with david axe. >> caller: good afternoon. my question was, basically, being a war correspondent do you have to go through any specialized training at all to

be in conflict zones? >> guest: no, i didn't. in the beginning of the iraq war, the pentagon rounded up some reporters and put them through a reporters' boot camp in anticipation of the invasion and having embedded reporters. but once the embed program had sort of found its footing -- because i didn't embed for the first time until early 2005 -- by then they weren't doing those boot camps. and i found that the military was, by that point, experienced enough in handling reporters that they were able to just accommodate me in the conflict zone and point out what i should and shouldn't do without putting me through a formal training program. >> host: who was or who is ahmed zia in afghanistan? >> guest: he's one of my fixers. as a reporter working in a conflict zone, you utterly rely on your local fixers to drive you around, to keep you safe, to interpret, and he was one of my better afghan fixers. there are good ones and there are bad ones. the bad ones will squeeze you for cash, the good ones will

save your life. >> host: how do you find them? >> guest: networking. i find other reporters who have done similar work and get referrals and check out these people, cross-reference and then cross my fingers. >> host: you start to tell a rather homophobic joke with ahmed. >> guest: well, that's afghan culture for you. [laughter] >> host: you write that you came back from afghanistan with, basically, a low-grade anger. why? >> guest: i came back from afghanistan the first time in the summer of 2007, so by then i'd been covering primarily american-led wars for nearly three years. and it was frustrating to come home to a society that didn't seem to realize it was at war. certainly, soldiers and airmen and marines, sailers deployed overseas, they know they're at war. reporters who cover the conflict, we know we're at war. our elected leaders probably sense that we're at war. but it's easy to get the feeling when you're just walking around small town america or in many

detroit or d.c., wherever, a lot of americas don't seem affected by these conflicts. i'm not sure who's to blame for that, but it's not healthy. >> host: "war is boring," is the book. cold spring, texas, please go ahead. >> caller: yes. i personally experienced post traumatic stress syndrome after my husband was district attorney in an eastern county, and what i found was i could not sleep for months and months and months, and i was just wondering since he refers to having post traumatic stress syndrome, did he have insomnia? ..

i would go back and forth between home and iraq. i would wake up at home in the middle of the night and have no idea where i was. that is probably the most terrifying thing, psychological effect i have suffered. so spring out of bed at three in the morning in utter darkness. at home in columbia, south carolina, and begin spring around my apartment running intv things because i had noe idea w here i was. brain i think my brain has adopted to. this kind of work.suffer those i i don't suffer those kinds ofym. things anymore. >> host: they have some good pasta in mogadishu. expression r parents face is rather priceless provided you include that? >> guest: i came home from somalia in late 2007 and crashed moved in with my parents. i think they at first struggle to understand what it was i was dealing with.

the memories, the experiences, the disillusionment being broke and feeling under appreciated. just the sheer psychological effects of covering more. there were a few, i think, tends dinners as they tried to tease out of me what was troubling me. and it was not always pretty. >> here it is. "war is boring" by david axe. new american library is the publisher. a birdie you go next? >> guest: i have not decided yet. every time i come home from a war zone i announce that i've retired. i'm in retirement. give me about six wee >> visit booktv done or to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you

see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend at the top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> up next jules witcover former columnist for the "baltimore sun" presents a biography of vice president joe biden. he discusses his book at the woman's national democratic club here in washington. it's about 50 minutes. >> i like to talk a minute about the challenge of writing a biography of a public figure. it's a problem because i found most of these people have gone and set public perceptions, and

about writing a biography you have to get beyond that. i found that true in writing several other books, a biography heavily involving a character including robert kennedy, richard nixon, spiro agnew, jimmy carter, before taking on this book about joe biden. i determined in doing those books that many of the impressions that i formed of these people held up pretty well. for example, i found it more than ambitious and some -- is that better? some even ruthless. for example, robert kennedy was accused of being ruthless.

nixon and agnew of being conniving and crooked. carter of being stubborn. and in exploring joe biden, it's not the case at all. i interviewed about 120 people for the book, many of them in the senate, many of them in washington, many of them in delaware. and the worst i found about him was a fellow who was an aide, a republican candidate against biden on one of israel election campaigns. when i asked why joe biden continue to get reelected, he was reelected six times. and the fellow said he's an embarrassment, he's our embarrassment. and that is the worst that i was

told about him. but as we all know, joe biden has had what i call to barnacles on the ship that always cling to him, of this nature. not as damaging in any way to the negative characteristics assigned to nixon and agnew, and even carter, and that is he talks too much and that he puts his foot in his mouth too often. joe biden would plead guilty to this himself. i would like to read to you from the book won a couple of republicans have said about joe in this regard.

the first is bob dole, who made a gesture that said joe's got a short fuse and a long to go with it. when he gets up to speak, we all figured we have 30 or 45 minutes to go to the office, a haircut, not the we did want to hear what he had to say, we probably heard it all already. then there was this from chuck hagel, republican from nebraska, who traveled widely with biden on the foreign relations committee.

and here's what chuck hagel had to say with regard, he said, you think anytime someone talks a lot he puts himself in a position or he can be subjected to intense criticism and analysis. that's just the nature of politics and the nature of leadership. and joe talks about as much as any senator i've ever been around. joe likes to talk. he likes people. he likes to engage. he can't help himself. and when you do that, you run the risk to some extent of trivializing your services and frankness, the seriousness of your identity. joe does talk too much, and he knows he talks too much, but that doesn't take away from the depth of his knowledge, his great experience and judgment. he's a very honest, open person. if you ask him a question, he

will tell you, even if you don't ask them a question, he will tell you. this is the way he is. and it seems to me we should put a premium on that with our elected officials. rather than having to pry everything out of him, this guy is about as forthcoming a politician as i've ever been around. and when you are that way, you're going to get yourself in trouble. that's from another republican. fortunately, these kind of surface impressions mask other qualities of joe biden that led barack obama to give him, to pick him on the ticket, and to give them responsibility that he

is set in the first two years of the new administration. obama offered the vice presidency to biden, biden was not seeking it. he told obama he thought that is chairman of the senate foreign relations committee he could be more useful to the country, and to his own career. so he sat down conditions to obama, that if he did take the vice presidency he wanted first and foremost to be involved in the governing of the country, that he did want to be just a showboat or a ceremonial vice president, and that he would be in the room as politicians a when the big decisions were made

their obama agree to all those conditions, and that's pretty much how it has worked out. over the first two years. obama has looked to biden increasingly for his counsel, and even for his friendship. also in terms of personality, they are not really that much alike. biden being really open, and outgoing. and obama can be at times more aloof and protective. but as we've seen in biden's role, in overseeing the withdrawal of troops from iraq, and now in monitoring the search in afghanistan, that biden has been a key figure.

and at home we have seen in the last week or so biden's important role in working out the negotiations with republican minority leader mitch mcconnell on the tax deal. and then after that, trying to sue -- soother the bad feelings among fellow democrats in the senate. but in all of this, biden has been extremely active and visible vice president, much more so than his predecessor, dick cheney, who as you may recall was constantly being shunted off by quote undisclosed location for his protection or for the countries protection. [laughter] >> and biden on the other hand has been constantly in view.

almost unprecedented appearances of the vice president at presidential press conferences, and you may remember that it was an aside to obama during the signing of the health care reform bill went biden was heard whispering that it was a big deal, with expletive undeleted. so you may wonder why obama picked this guy as his running mate in the first place. knowing his pension for talking too much. sometimes talking himself into trouble. more important is why has he paid biden such an open partner for governing the country? probably more so than even bill clinton did with al gore or

jimmy carter did with mondale who's probably the first we'll active vice president with responsibilities. i think the reason is the first of all obama took seriously what all presidential nominees say when they are nominated, they pick the person most qualified to be president. it's a pledge that is honored in the brief, the breach in most cases. obama saw biden's record in the senate, and his reach as a widely traveled senator, as confirmation that he could become, he could be president if he had to be. but i think to help him persuade him of that was a biden's

performances in the 2007 debates, presidential debates that led up to 2008 race. biden was particularly concise and articulate in his responses in those debates to the point that many times of the candidates, including obama, would preface their own remarks by saying, joe is right. and it got to be kind of a joke into biden family to recall joe was right. biden's most remember debate quote came in south carolina when the moderator asked him whether as president he could control his talking. with a straight face of biden answered simply yes. then he broke into the famous biden grin and one of the

biggest applause of the audience of the night. every presidential candidate for nominee always says he's going to pick the person most qualified to be president. but we do too many examples where that hasn't been the case. most notably to me was george bush, senior george bush's choice of the hapless dan quayle in 1998. bush you can recall almost became president himself a month after the inauguration of ronald reagan when reagan narrowly escaped assassination. george bush senior should have known better. and then, of course, we have the example of john mccain choosing sarah palin, which was clearly throwing a hail mary pass to try to pull out an election that was sinking.

with a biden, you're not doing trimming people complaining that if anything happened to the president, he would not be qualified to take over. as a reporter who covered joe biden often on in the late 1970s, earlier 1980s, and when he ran for the presidency the first time, i was well aware of the complaints about him in talking too much. i was in iowa in 1987 when he made remarks that should have been but were not attributed to a british politician in a speech at the iowa state fair that led to charges of plagiarism, that were then added to by charges that he had, as a student in law

school, committed plagiarism in a paper he wrote. biden was very hurt by these charges, and worked very hard to have them, to have himself exonerated years later. in fact, got a court order, court decision that exonerated him in the case of the syracuse law school charge. and i talked to people at syracuse about it, and they said people didn't think much of it at the time but when the focus came on the incident in iowa, this charge was regurgitated. as often happens in politics, if a politician makes one mistake, he gets over. if he makes what seems to be the same mistake twice or three times, it becomes a pattern, it is very hard to shake the impression.

biden was very upset about getting out, having to get out of the presidential race, which he did after that, but personally more so because it questioned his integrity. the biden family is a very tight and proud family, very strongly -- a very strong religious family, and dedicated to each other. the very fact that joe biden was accused of lying was crushing to him. to this day he often promises he makes in his speech by saying i give you my word as a biden, meaning if i say it, you can take it to the bank. and so that episode of the plagiarism episode was very jarring to him because of that.

at the time of that episode, i'd just beginning to hearings as chairman of the senate judiciary committee on the confirmation of judge robert bork. biden decided that he had to either continue his run for presidency or get out and fight against bork. he chose the latter. and any and, the bork nomination was defeated and biden considered one of his major contributions ever as a senator. let me tell you just a bit about this book. you're probably on the stories about biden's incredible beginning in politics, running

for the county council in delaware at the age of 27 and winning. then two years later, running against an entrenched republican senator for his seat, and upsetting him. two weeks after he was elected to the senate, and before he was old enough to serve in the senate, at the age of 30 in the interim, we before christmas when his wife and their three small children, two boys and an infant were in a terrible car accident outside of wilmington when a huge truck plowed into their car.

biden obvious it was totally crushed. think of abandoning going into the senate at all, and had to be persuaded by members of his family, and also by the senate majority leader at the time, mike mansfield, and other leading democrats like hubert humphrey, to come to this and. some of them urged him to do that, if anything else, as a therapy for the depth of his grief. and it was only by the pleading of the members of the family to urge him that they did so. you may recall stories about joe biden always feature his community on amtrak between wilmington and washington, which begin at the time of the accident. but he was determined that he was going to be with the boys,

who were then toddlers. so he did come every night. every morning he would get on the train to washington, and then that not come back on the train to wilmington. in fact, he was sworn into the senate at the hospital -- at the hospital bed of bob biden who are still in hospital at the time it can be continue to do that, incredibly, for 36 years. other members of the three member delaware congressional delegation often fell in line accompanying him, and it was part of the reason they turned out to be so close, even though it was a split delegation, was always at least one republican in a three-man delegation. but as result of this behavior,

this schedule he had, i was not very well-known in the senate by the other senators for quite a while. he went home every night while the others would eat and drink together and socialize together, all during the week. and also the fact that joe biden was and still is a teetotaler. didn't have much to do with the social circuit. he bragged often that he never went to in receptions, and it's been pretty much the same now that he is vice president. little more so, he has been seen around washington a little more, but he and his second wife, jill, go back to their home in wilmington just about every weekend. was the other senators learn

from this, everyone from delaware new, was that biden had an uncommon commitment to his state, to his family, and to his catholic religion. and that was the center of his life from his earliest days as a kid in scranton, pennsylvania, a blue-collar town, and it's not a cliché to say that faith and family saw through biden these early tragedies in his life, and have continued to be a man crush for him throughout his political career. biden's father was an englishm englishman, leaving his irish heir to assure him early on that his father was in a bad person at all.

joe's boyhood was full of mischievous behavior as any kid would be, and he wasn't much of a student. concentrating more on sports, played on girls, met his future wife when he was on spring break in the bahamas from the university of delaware, spotted her and courted her almost fanatically from that moment. and, finally, the reason he went to syracuse law school because she lived in a suburb of syracuse, and that was that. in talking to people about joe in those early days, i was surprised to find that many people will insist that they heard joe say from the earliest

age that he wanted to be president. he tried to back off at one point in a speech at a catholic school when a man got up and said, joe we biden, that's not true, you told me in my class in the fifth grade that he wanted to be president. but obviously he had his eyes on something higher than local politics. he served as on the county council in new castle county, the largest county in delaware, for just two years. and are taking a job even before he served his two years, he went to the democratic state chairman who is retiring from the county council for some advice. this fellow about biden is coming to ask him about what his duties were to be on the county council, and instead, he said no, i want to run for the

senate. so this fellow said, joe, you represent the largest county in delaware to your constituency is much larger than it would be if you're in for the state senate. and biden said no, i mean u.s. senate. so he was on record pretty early that that was his ambition. five years after the death of neilia biden, joe finally married again at the urging of the two boys who had been under the wing of joe's sister, valerie, from the time of the accident, on until this point. in fact they testify about going to biden at one point and saying, dad, we think we should marry jill. last nigh.

[laughter] >> jill was hesitant of taking on the cameras possibly a take on two small boys but they were finally married and the three of them went on a honeymoon. they were in new york and they stayed at a hotel. the boys took the honeymoon suite and joe and jill took their room, and they were that night to a hamburger joint, and then to see any. that was the honeymoon of the three of them. soon afterwards, jill and joe had a daughter, ashley, who followed the family footsteps and is now doing social work in delaware. all through this time joe biden was continue to build up a reputation as a hard-working senator. at the beginning he was a bit of

a celebrity because he was 30, he had this history of the famine accident and everything, became quite a celebrity and did a lot of speaking around the country. and i think that had a factor, it was a factor of his thinking eventually about running for president. and, of course, the pieces of his senate service with a confirmation hearings that he led for members of the supreme court. the bulk we have already talked about. biden managed to get many, many civil rights groups that were dying to get into the act about defeating robert bork. and have them agree to not diffuse the attack and fell in behind him so he led the successful fight to defeat

robert bork. sometime afterward he had another serious health problem where he had two brain aneurysms, one of which, the last rites of the catholic church were sent over him. and he persevered with his strong family behind him, and continued on. about four years after the bork hearings, he undertook the hearings for the confirmation of clarence thomas, which was in many ways even more contentious than the bork hearings. biden in the bork hearings had been over backwards to be fair to bork. inspite of his opposition. he sought to do the same thing in the clarence thomas hearings,

but was considerably less successful. became quite a criticism of biden that at the end of those hearings, which you may recall a young black professor, they need a hill, made charges of sexual harassment against thomas. because of pressures -- pressure from republicans on the committee and others, to witnesses who were prepared to substantiate anita hill the charges were not called to testify. although they did, they did provide depositions in which the allegations were made. biden was severely criticized when thomas was