What It Takes (96 page)

Joe’d never had a press conference half that size. He’d never even
seen
a pack like that. He walked into the Houston convention center and thirty cameras swung around. The halogens pinned him. He stopped dead. He muttered through a frozen smile: “Holy
shit
...”

He only meant to say he had doubts about Bork ... but he’d keep an open mind, give the guy a fair shake, a fair hearing. Actually, what he meant to say that night was nothing at all—or as little as he could.

But he couldn’t really blow off the press conference, or delay it for a day ... no more than he could hold off Bork ... no more than he could hold back the debate ... which went off that night, as scheduled. Biden seemed barely there. He never made a dent, couldn’t seem to connect. Dukakis, Gephardt—they both made points. But Joe looked like he’d dropped in from outer space. The fact was, he’d chucked Pat’s message one day before—and he didn’t have a new one. He didn’t have time to think up one line! On stage, his answers wandered, they went nowhere. His smile would jump up in the middle of a sentence, as if he’d thought of something funny but didn’t mean to share it. Tom Shales, the TV critic, wrote the next day, for
The Washington Post
:

“Biden ... appears to be overadvised and suffering from excessive consultitis. Worse, he comes across on TV as someone whose fuse is always lit.

“Unless we ditch television for the remainder of the campaign, Biden will never be President.”

T
HE ONLY ONE WHO
could have stopped it was the Bobster. When Baker and Meese came to the Capitol, the only “consultation” that could have derailed Bork was word from Bob Dole that he couldn’t find the votes.

He could have warned them about a fight ... but they wanted a fight, to show they could still do something after Iran-contra. That was half of Dole’s dilemma—he didn’t want Iran-contra buried. Dole could hardly believe that the truth about Bush-in-that-soup hadn’t come out yet—
somehow
, between the Tower Commission and the Select Committee ... well, maybe it would now. The Senate committee had Ollie North on the stand next week.

So Dole didn’t need another hurricane to blow Ollie’s testimony off the front page. ... He didn’t want a crisis that would rally the antiabortion nuts, the prayer-in-school nuts, the Uzi-under-the-bed nuts to the White House, to Reagan (and, by extension, Reagan-Bush).

But that was the other half of Dole’s dilemma: with Bork as the darling of the Reagan right, Dole could not seem cool toward Judge Bork—nor even lukewarm. No! ... Bob Dole would have to
lead the fight
for the White House.

That was the nub of Dole’s appeal, his claim to the Gipper’s mantle—and the Gipper’s voters. “When Ronald Reagan wants something done,” Dole would tell his crowds, “he doesn’t call George ... he calls Bob!

“That’s
leadership
,” Dole would say. “Leadership’s when they give you the ball!”

Bob Dole would have to carry the ball for Bork.

When Ted Kennedy stood, within minutes of Bork’s nomination, to
savage
the man (“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens’ doors ...”), it was Dole who took the floor to defend him. Then he marched to his office to call Bork at the White House. “Well, you prob’ly heard, Ted Kennedy just attacked you—that’s a good sign. Course, I stood up and said you were a Great American, so—here we go. ... Well, keep your chin up!”

For reporters, Dole had nothing but smiles and confidence: people who attacked Judge Bork were playing footsie with
liberal interest groups
. “Judge Bork will be confirmed—I think, overwhelmingly, once people get a chance to look at his record.” (In Dole’s view, Bork
would
be a shoo-in—if Dole could set up the fight as the learned judge ... against the gay-lesbian-affirmative-abortion-welfare-rights caucus.)

It was only in Dole’s inner office, in his own car, or his own plane, that little comments started to leak, belying his cheerful Bork-boosting:

“Agh, first thing that guy oughta do is
shayyve
...”

And only true students of Dole-code understood the new line that crept into his stump speech:

“That’s
leadership
,” Dole would say. “Leadership’s when they give you the ball!

“Sometimes, you don’t even
want
the ball ...”

Thing was, Biden knew Dole could make it stick—poor Bob Bork,
victim of the liberals
!—unless Joe acted fast.

That Ted Kennedy speech, slamming Bork—that was hot rhetoric, good TV, great politics ... for Kennedy. But Joe could think of three or four southern Democrats who’d
have
to be for Bork, if the contest came down to Bork v. Kennedy.

Biden knew he could lose even more votes if the interest groups didn’t stop issuing threats. Hazel Dukes, New York State director of the NAACP, told reporters that Pat Moynihan
had
to vote against Bork—or she and her group would knock Moynihan out of office.

Hell, they were threatening
Biden
: even before Bork was named, Estelle Rogers, director of the Federation of Women Lawyers, warned that Biden had better “take time from his busy schedule to exercise the kind of leadership we expect from the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“If he can’t,” said Ms. Rogers, “he’d be wise to think carefully about resigning the chairmanship.”

That was the fastest way to make enemies in the Senate. Biden always thought the liberal groups were a pain in the ass. Now they were going to lose the battle before it started.

One other thing Biden knew: Bob Dole would fight this out—right onto the floor. ... Alas, Biden knew from experience.

In ’86, he was running his first floor fight on a nomination, on a forty-four-year-old Indiana right-winger, Daniel Manion, whom Reagan had nominated for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Manion (a pal and protégé of Senator Dan Quayle) was a John Birch sympathizer—his legal briefs were barely in
English
. Law school professors and deans lined up against him. The American Bar Association wouldn’t give him a clean endorsement. Then the Judiciary Committee voted the nomination out unfavorably.

Biden had all the ammo he needed. He walked onto the floor, jingling change in his pocket, like a gunfighter looking for an insult.
Game day!
... He had the votes. They
told
him he had the votes. In colloquy with Dole, across the aisle, Biden said, in effect:
Let’s go! Let’s roll the dice!

Senators were absent. Biden offered to let them pair up—one pro-Manion, to one anti-Manion—they’d cancel each other out.

“Agghh! Now we’re talkin’ real turkey,” Dole said.

Problem was, Biden wasn’t really sure who was pro-Manion. And he thought Slade Gorton was anti-Manion—when, in fact, Gorton had sold his vote for control of a judgeship in his own state.

Anyway, Joe made them roll the dice ... and he lost. He lost by two votes. Dole knew where his votes were, and Biden didn’t. He fell on his face.

His liberal friends were livid, crying foul about the pairings ... Dole was playing fast and loose!

They weren’t any more livid than Biden. It was the civil rights groups that told him he had the votes in the first place. He
never
should have listened to them—should have taken care of business himself!

Biden knew, that day in 1986, he would never let the groups lead a fight for him again. ... Just as he knew, the minute the Bork nomination hit, he had to get them off his back.

So he and the staff made a plan, a careful choreography of Biden’s first day back in the Senate: Joe had to get control—establish the fairness of the process, and cool the rhetoric until the time was right.

Ten
A.M.,
he’d meet with Bork, and assure him there’d be punctiliously fair committee hearings. Biden would maintain his two-step strategic position: he had “doubts” about Bork ... but he would keep an open mind.

Next, he’d convene his panel of experts—Phil Kurland from Chicago, Walter Dellinger from Duke, Ken Bass (a former clerk to Justice Hugo Black), and Clark Clifford, the big-foot of Washington lawyers. Biden wanted their help to make his case for opposition, in one grand speech before the hearings in September.

Then, twelve-thirty, he’d meet with leaders of the civil rights groups. His agenda was short and direct: he wanted them to back off and let
him
make the move on Bork. If they wanted to help, they could sing from
his
prayer book. If not, they could just shut up.

But by the time he rolled into the leaders’ meeting—almost an hour late—he was whistling with pent-up steam. There were nabobs from a half-dozen major liberal and minority lobbies: the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the Mexican-American Legal Defense Fund, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Women’s Legal Defense Fund, and People for the American Way. Biden started talking fast.

He meant to speak bluntly and confidentially, he said. He wanted them to know, they should stop whining about his devoting time to Bork. He would spend whatever time was required—even if it meant the end of his campaign.

Then he told them
he
would decide the strategy—it wasn’t going to be a single-issue campaign. That was a shot across the women’s bow, to let them know they could lose this fight (and lose him) if they made this a vote on abortion.

Well, that part worked fine. The feminist rep, Judy Lichtman, assured him she knew they couldn’t fight Bork solely on abortion. Ralph Neas, from the Leadership Conference, said no one doubted Biden’s commitment ... they just wanted to discuss the timing of the hearings.

So Biden discussed timing. And he could have left it there. In fact, he meant to ... but he wanted them to know
him
. He wanted them to feel the
connect
, before he left that room.

“Look, I’m gonna lead this fight—but you guys ...”

And that was the critical mistake.

Within minutes, Biden was gone, he’d run off to a meeting with his Democratic committee colleagues.

But within hours,
The New York Times
was calling. Ken Noble, the reporter, wanted to know why Biden had said he’d keep an open mind—and then promised the civil rights groups that he’d “lead the fight against Bork.”

Pete Smith, the committee’s Press Secretary, got Biden on the phone—had to track him down in the gym. This was serious. “Uh, Senator, I think we have a problem ...”

Biden didn’t see why he should tell the
Times
anything.

Smith said they ought to draft a statement “to, uhnnn, bridge the two realities of those statements.”

“Okay,” Biden said.

So Smith issued a statement that Biden
was
planning to lead the fight—but hadn’t meant to make that known until after he’d crafted a major set of speeches to set forth the case against Bork.

Well, that bridged the realities ... but also left the impression that Biden had blithely lied to the world—and told the truth only when pressured by the liberal interest groups.

It also ended his two-step strategy.

He was committed.

BANGO!

Joe had bought himself a fight.

T
HEY WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE
another meeting on the porch of the big house in Wilmington, another session to figure out how to beat Bork. But Joe could not see the way, couldn’t see a thing—he was too depressed.

“We fucked it up ...” He must have said that five times. What he meant was, he’d fucked it up.

It wasn’t that he’d messed up by coming down against Bork. He’d learned plenty about Bork in two weeks—and he didn’t like what he’d heard. Anyway, politically, Joe had no choice: women, blacks, liberals of all stripes—they were going to the mattresses. One trip to Iowa, you’d have to be insensate to think any Democrat was going to be for Bork.

And it wasn’t that he’d messed up by deciding he’d have to lead the fight. Hell, it was his committee! If he left it to Kennedy, with his rhetoric—the women in the alleys with their coat hangers—the fight was lost. That Teddy-firebrand stuff would lose every southerner, every Republican vote in the Senate. They wouldn’t even have the votes to hold off cloture. They couldn’t even
talk
Bork to death.

No, Joe had to do it, and do it without the interest groups. That’s how he’d screwed up. He’d talked to the groups ... and it leaked out that he’d make the fight. Like he promised
them
! Like he was their tool! Jesus!

“I made one big mistake,” Biden said on the porch.

“Yeah, but Joe ...” The guys were there to reassure him. But Biden was still talking:

“And it’s probably fatal ... the biggest mistake of my political career. You know, I didn’t just screw up the campaign. It’s my whole Senate career. It’s over.”

“Jesus, Joe!”

They’d never seen him like this, with the wind out so completely. He was curled into the white wicker, shrinking in his seat. He had his eyes turned away, toward the lawn, the fountain ... it never worked. He would have fixed the goddam fountain, but he was going to move. He had that house. Beautiful deal! He shoulda bought the damn house ... but no ... he had to run. He wiggled out of the closing on the new house two weeks ago, just before Bork.

“Goddamnit!”

“Joe, wait a minute.” This was Donilon, up from Washington, trying to put the thing on track. (Donilon
had
to get the thing on track. He’d cut himself loose from his law firm—as of July 1, the day they got Bork in their laps.) “Joe, you gotta remember, there’s a tremendous up side ...”

Donilon was always talking opportunity: national TV, for weeks, every day ...
Joe Biden, Defender of the Constitution
. “Joe, just the name recognition ...”

“Yeah,” Joe would say. “But I gotta go toe-to-toe with Bork. I gotta show some substance.”

Joe could not see his way to a win. For Christ’s sake, there weren’t fifty-one votes, today, for the simple proposition that Bork should even be
questioned
about his ideology, his politics, philosophy. Most of the Senate thought the Judiciary Committee should limit itself to one inquiry: Was Bork personally fit for the job by virtue of his education, experience, temperament?