Are Joe Biden's gaffes tied to stuttering? I know from experience what that feels like
"Secondly when you commit yourself to a goal, when you persevere in the face of struggle, you discover strengths you never thought you had and that I guarantee you're going to need someday."
One example he offered young folks had particular resonance for me and, I'm sure, I wasn't alone. "When you walk up to that girl and say, 'W-w-w-will you go to the p-p-p-prom with me?' it takes more ... darn courage to do that than about anything any of you have ever done in your whole life."
Indeed, like many of the rest of us, he suffered through various humiliations, nasty nicknames and even fistfights as a kid. He fondly recalls how his mother scolded one teacher, a Catholic nun, for mocking his stutter in class. Thanks, Mom.
But I also rooted him on as he recalled memorizing Emerson and Yeats so he could recite them in front a mirror to train himself to speak without contorting his facial features. He also volunteered for speech and debate opportunities, as I did, which prepared him for politics -- and me for television news-panel shows.
"Out of everything terrible, Joey," he quoted his mom as saying, "something good will happen if you only look hard enough for it."
Should more voters know about Biden's stuttering challenges? He certainly shouldn't try to run away from it, says another stutterer, Michael Sheehan, a Washington-based communications coach who has been helping Biden prepare for debates. Passing along some campaign advice from MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who was sharing a quote favored by Robert F. Kennedy, Sheehan told me, "Always hang a lantern on a problem."
I agree. I'm sure many readers reacted to the Atlantic revelations as Ramesh Ponnuru, senior editor at the conservative National Review, did on his magazine's website: "I had no idea, but it helps explain some of his verbal tics."
Indeed it does. But, politics aside, what should really matter to voters isn't Biden's speech problems but how well he rises above them.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)
(c) 2019 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
