The Washington Free Beacon reports that Vice President Joseph Biden made his audience “burst into laughter” at the Urban League gathering in Cincinnati when he cracked “I should have had one Republican kid to go out and make money,” noting that instead he has a daughter who went into social work. 

And well should they have burst into laughter. It was a joke, folks! In real life, Biden’s son Beau has worked as an asbestos plaintiff’s lawyer, which is much more of a moneymaking venture than most “Republican kids” ever get near. Both he and another Biden son have been closely associated with one of the biggest such law firms in the nation. This fits a pattern noted by David Boaz a few weeks back, in which reporters keep acting surprised when Democratic politicians are found to be pals with zillionaires and attending fundraisers at mansions. 

Although Vice President Biden has not always been entirely forthcoming about his family’s longstanding ties to plaintiff’s law work, especially considering his own role as a guardian of trial lawyer causes while in the Senate, you might have seen them mentioned in places like the L.A. Times and USA Today a few years back. The L.A. Times story begins: 

When Joe Biden’s brother and son wanted to buy a hedge fund company two years ago, they turned for financing to a law firm that had lobbied the Delaware senator’s office on an important piece of business in Congress — and in fact had recently benefited from his vote. The firm promised James and Hunter Biden that it would invest $2 million, and quickly delivered half of it.

They wanted to buy a hedge fund? At least it presumably wasn’t a Republican hedge fund.