Sen Joe Biden's been abused....

http://select.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/opinion/07dowd.html?pagewanted=print

February 7, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
This One’s for You, Joe
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON

It’s not double jeopardy exactly, but still, I’d prefer not to kill the same man twice.
And I wanted to follow William Safire’s advice on writing about gaffes and graft: Only kick people when they’re up, not when they’re down.

So I decided to do something completely radical and not pile on.

Having played a role in derailing Joe Biden’s ’88 presidential bid with stories on his overreliance on the speeches of Neil Kinnock and Bobby Kennedy, I feel compelled, now that the guy has slipped on another presidential banana peel 20 years later, to lend him a hand.

I wanted to give him a chance to wipe the slate clean and articulate his positions — without dredging up any painful memories of the words “clean” and “articulate.”

The senator called me between New York fund-raisers last night. After his rough week, he sounded a bit chastened, not at all in the mood for a columnist’s probing questions. He needn’t have feared.

“So,” I asked him sweetly, “why has everyone been so mean to you?”

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