Biden, who was in Washington at the time, considered withdrawing from the Senate to take care of his two sons, who were injured in the crash. To this day, he does not drive the 80 miles from Delaware to Washington but commutes by train. He has since remarried.
In the Senate, Biden has built a reputation as a foreign policy specialist. He is chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and is the author of a Senate resolution opposing President Bush's escalation of troops in Iraq.
Biden ran for the 1988 presidential nomination but withdrew amid accusations that he had plagiarized portions of speeches by a British politician. Asked Wednesday what he learned from the experience, Biden said, "I took a real gut punch. I learned how to take it, and I got back up."
Last year, he was forced to defend a remark that "you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent." He said his words had not been fairly portrayed.
In the New York Observer interview, Biden challenged the foreign policy prescriptions of other Democratic candidates in the 2008 race.
Asked about Edwards' call to immediately withdraw a portion of the U.S. force from Iraq, Biden said: "I don't think John Edwards knows what the heck he is talking about."
He said Clinton's plan to cap the number of U.S. troops and to threaten to cut funds to Iraqi leaders would be "nothing but disaster."
"This administration's mishandling of the war in Iraq may be the greatest foreign policy disaster of our time," Biden said in a video statement on his campaign website Wednesday. "Above all else, that's why I'm running for president."
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johanna.neuman@latimes.com
