Professor Paul Kengor just released another important book, The Divine Plan: John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and the Dramatic End of the Cold War, but what he wrote earlier in The Judge about Joe Biden is worth another look as Biden runs (again!) for president.
In an episode that was hot news then but cooled since, Biden showed himself to be a showboating, self-indulgent, shiftless skunk in perilous times. He remains unchanged, unembarrassed (he seems incapable of shame) and unrepentant about that incident, if he remembers it, or any of the others that, were he not a denizen of the District of Columbia, would have sent him into hiding, not on a quest for the Oval Office.
Suffering double-digit unemployment, inflation, and interest rates and told by President Jimmy Carter the nation’s best days were behind it and that, with oil and gas running out, only privation lay ahead, Americans elected the optimistic but untested Ronald Reagan. Meanwhile, foreign affairs presented an array of challenges. American hostages had only just, on Reagan’s inauguration, been released by Iran; we were beholden to the Middle East for energy supplies; and the Soviet Union and its proxies were on the march in Europe, Africa, and South America with mutually assured destruction a misstep away. Rejecting détente, Reagan promised, “We win; they lose.” Little wonder the world was uncertain, edgy, and frightened.
For secretary of state, Reagan selected and the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed, after a prolonged and pugnacious hearing, the flamboyant and incendiary Gen. Al Haig. To, as Reagan often said, “pour oil on troubled waters,” he selected as Haig’s No. 2 Judge William P. Clark. Clark was a tried, true, top Reagan hand, his closest male friend in Washington and perhaps the world and an experienced jurist who had recently stepped down from the California Supreme Court.
Clark was nominated deputy secretary for another reason: to resolve a deficiency identified by a 1975 blue-ribbon panel (the Murphy Commission) that the deputy must manage the vast department. Clark read that report and, ever deferential to Reagan and Haig on foreign policy, sought to restore good order and discipline at the department.
All this was known to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, including then-Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., but he played Clark’s confirmation hearing for sport and a spot in the Washington Post, which he won with the headline, “The Interrogation of Justice Clark.” “I have a great deal of admiration for you,” he began and then, as the Post reported, proved he did not.
CLARK: “No sir, I cannot.”
BIDEN: “Can you tell me who the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe is?”
CLARK: “It would be a guess.”
BIDEN: “Can you tell me what the major bilateral issues are between the United States and Brazil at this point?”
CLARK: “I am unaware of the priorities…”
BIDEN: “I really don’t like doing this Justice Clark … What are the countries in Europe, in NATO, that are most reluctant to go along with theater nuclear force modernization?”
CLARK: “I am not in a position, as you already have suggested, Senator, to categorize them from the standpoint of acceptance on the one hand and resistance on the other.”
BIDEN: “Well, then, let’s talk about England for a moment. Can you tell us, just from accounts in the newspaper, what is happening in the British Labour Party these days?”
CLARK: “I don’t think I can tell you with specificity what is happening in the British Labour Party these days.”
BIDEN: “I really apologize, Mr. Justice. … This is one of the most distasteful question-and-answer periods in which I have participated. … I have incredible regard for you.”
Afterward, the unctuous Biden sidled next to Clark, “Hey, judge, no hard feelings. … And don’t worry; I didn’t know the answers to those questions either.” Clark bore no ill will, although his family and friends were furious. Clark was confirmed, with the largest number of “No” votes of any Reagan first-term appointee, but the damage was done. Foreign news outlets called him a “nitwit,” the “Don’t Know Man,” and “not competent.” The London Daily Mirror opined, “America’s allies in Europe … hope he is never in charge at a time of crisis.”
Fortunately, for the world, America, and Reagan, Clark was there in every “time of crisis,” as deputy secretary of state, as national security advisory, and as secretary of the interior. In every role, he excelled. Whatever his portfolio, however, he was a telephone call away from the president to provide indispensable, independent, and wise counsel.
Westerners are immensely proud of the fifth-generation California rancher, grandson of the “last of the frontier marshals,” the soft-spoken but steady as a rock Westerner who left his ranch to do good and then came home to live well on the land. Clark forgave Joe Biden, but we who loved Judge Clark cannot forget. Likewise, we who love our country must remember Biden for how he needlessly and selfishly put our nation at risk during dangerous days.
Those days did not end with Reagan and Clark’s victory over world communism. We face them still and have faced them throughout the 21st century, but must not allow a “skunk” like Biden to face them as our president. The man who shamefully interrogated Clark is the same man who asks for our support today.
William Perry Pendley (@Sagebrush_Rebel) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is an attorney and the author of Sagebrush Rebel: Reagan’s Battle with Environmental Extremists and Why It Matters Today.
