We must say up front that we sympathize with Vice President Biden for the loss of his wife and infant daughter in a 1972 car crash.  It is, however, unfortunate that Biden himself lacks the common decency not to misuse and pervert the memory of his spouse and child for political gain, and not to misuse the resources of the U.S. Senate to inflict pain on an innocent family for the same reason.

As reported by Inside Edition, a police investigation of the accident showed that Mrs. Biden pulled into an intersection after she failed to notice an oncoming tractor trailer, which apparently had the right of way.  The truck's driver, Curtis Dunn, put his own life at risk in an effort to avoid the collision; he twisted the wheel so hard that he overturned his vehicle.  Delaware Online adds emphatically that neither driver had consumed alcohol.  Senator Biden, as reported by the New York Times, nonetheless chose to publicly and falsely accuse Mr. Dunn of killing Biden's wife and child while driving drunk (emphasis added):

"Let me tell you a little story," Mr. Biden told the crowd at the University of Iowa. "I got elected when I was 29, and I got elected November the 7th. And on Dec. 18 of that year, my wife and three kids were Christmas shopping for a Christmas tree. A tractor-trailer, a guy who allegedly -- and I never pursued it -- drank his lunch instead of eating his lunch, broadsided my family and killed my wife instantly, and killed my daughter instantly, and hospitalized my two sons, with what were thought to be at the time permanent, fundamental injuries."

A false accusation of a crime such as killing somebody while driving drunk is of course automatically libel or slander, but Mr. Biden waited until Mr. Dunn had died of natural causes to make this accusation.  A dead person cannot sue for defamation, nor can his family sue on his behalf, which means Biden attacked somebody who could not defend himself.  This makes Barack Obama's running mate a coward as well as a liar.

Mr. Dunn is not in a position to care what Biden said about him, but he left a daughter (Pamela Hamill) and doubtless other family members who do care.  These are ordinary Americans who do not have the power and media access of a United States senator, who used his Senate website to perpetrate his malicious defamation of Ms. Hamill's father (emphasis added):

To the loved ones of the victims [of 9/11], there is nothing really we can say to erase this tragedy. And, those of you who think it's presumptuous of me to say that ... in a different circumstance, I got one of those phone calls. I got one of those phone calls like Davis Sezna got. I got a phone call saying, "Your wife's dead; your daughter's dead." And I've only said that three times in public before. But, I say it here because it's so important for you to understand. I got one of those phone calls. It was an errant driver who stopped to drink instead of drive and hit a tractor-trailer, hit my children and my wife and killed them. It wasn't an airplane, but it was a phone call: "They're dead." And, I can tell you from experience, and some of you can, too, that feeling that inside your chest is a black hole and you're being sucked inside it. I know from experience there's nothing in the near term we can do to bring solace, relief or peace to those people.

Biden therefore used his power as a U.S. senator to brutalize an ordinary American family so he could grandstand about how he felt the pain of the 9/11 victims, and that makes him a bully: "A person who uses strength or power to harm or intimidate those who are weaker."  To this may be added his prostitution of the memory of his own wife and daughter, whom he used for the same purpose.  There is a strong similarity between Biden's falsification of the accident for his personal gain and Craig and Cindy Corrie's use of their daughter's memory to gain media attention.

The Corries continue to blame Israel for the death of Rachel Corrie despite ample proof that the International Solidarity Movement knowingly, willfully, and recklessly put the lives of its own activists at risk by playing chicken with moving construction equipment.  Craig Corrie, who supervised bulldozer operations as a combat engineer in Vietnam, should know this better than anybody.  The pro-Palestinian Electronic Intifada even stipulates that the activists had several close calls with bulldozers earlier in the day (emphasis added).

Rachel Corrie (L) and Nick (R) oppose the potential destruction of this home (to the west of the Doctor's home where Rachel was killed). In the instance pictured, the bulldozer did not stop and Rachel was pinned between the scooped earth and the fence behind her. On this occasion, the driver stopped before seriously injuring her. Photo by Joseph Smith (ISM Handout).

Only a reckless person, as the law defines recklessness, would engage in, much less persist in, such an activity.  "Making of a Martyr" by Sandra Jordan at Buzzle.com is no longer online, possibly due to its exposure of even more recklessness by the International Solidarity Movement.

'We knew there was a risk,' Smith said, 'but we also knew it never happened in the two years that we (the ISM) have been working here. I knew we take lots of precautions so that it doesn't happen, that if it did happen it would have to be an intentional act by a soldier, in which case it would bring a lot of publicity and significance to the cause.'

ISM leader George Rishmawi also expressed a motive for wanting the group's activists dead for anti-Israel public relations purposes:

"When Palestinians get shot by Israeli soldiers, no one is interested anymore," Rishmawi said. "But if some of these foreign volunteers get shot or even killed, then the international media will sit up and take notice."

It is a matter of record that the Rachel Corrie Foundation was informed of this material, and even more, by e-mail.  The Corrie Foundation's persistence in attacking Israel instead of seeking genuine justice for Rachel Corrie -- e.g., by exposing the ISM for its willful endangerment of its own activists -- says plenty about this organization's integrity and character.  And Joseph Biden's perversion of the memory of his wife and daughter for political gain, and at the expense of a family of "the 99 percent," tells us everything we need to know about his integrity and character.

William A. Levinson, P.E. is the author of several books on business management including content on organizational psychology, as well as manufacturing productivity and quality.