I happen to like Vice-President Joe Biden. Yes, he occasionally makes verbal gaffes — though at least half the time when I see one reported, it doesn't seem to be as big a deal as folks are making it out to be. And even if they were all foot-in-mouth moments, he averages about one every two weeks, whereas George W. Bush said something dumber in just about every speech. (I'm not sure, by the way, that Obama's recent evolution to support Gay Marriage was hurried up because Biden had said something he shouldn't have said. Seems to me it was a deliberate way of paving the way for the big announcement.)
The other day, Biden gave a moving address to an audience of folks who'd lost loved ones in military service. I don't recall ever seeing someone with a rank as high as the Vice-President ever speaking so clearly from the heart and so extemporaneously. It's about the price of war but it's also about coping with any kind of death in the family. Here it is and it runs twenty minutes…
And if you'd like to see the entire program — which includes remarks by others and runs 45 minutes — here's a link to watch it on the C-Span website. It's quite a thing to view at any time but especially on Memorial Day Weekend.