Great Moments in Acknowledgments

Remember, this is about Joe Biden:

All provided invaluable facts and insights into the motivations, ambitions, and even the foibles that over the years have made Joe Biden both an inspirational and a controversial major figure on the American political stage. None has been more helpful than his best friend, sister Valerie. Her combination of enthusiasm, political savvy, Irish warmth, and openness made her an essential and cordial gatekeeper to the Biden inner circle and outer circles as well.

As a group, the Bidens not only certified the remarkably strong family ties binding them but also an uncommon loyalty tempered with candor toward the man who rose from commonplace beginnings in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware, to a career of influence in domestic matters and foreign affairs.

-- From Joe Biden: A Life of Trial and Redemption by Jules Witcover, William Morrow, 544 pp., $27.99