Navarrette: Once-empathetic Joe not feeling our pain FacebookTwitterEmail Throughout his career in politics, Joe Biden’s calling card has been empathy. It would go a long way in response to recent mass shootings and the refugee crisis.Demetrius Freeman /The Washington Post After just two short months in the White House, President Joe Biden has gone from the most empathetic person in politics to someone whose political instincts leave little room for empathy. It is one of his most endearing personal qualities that Biden wears his emotions on his sleeve. The Irishman knows painfully well the lesson of the Emerald Isle — that, sooner or later, life will break your heart. Biden has had his heart broken at least three times — after losing his first wife, Neilia, and their 1-year-old daughter, Naomi, in a terrible car crash the week before Christmas in 1972, and then losing his son Beau to brain cancer in 2015.