On Tuesday night, former Vice President Joe Biden told a room full of wealthy New York donors about the good old days. When he first arrived in the Senate in the 1970s, Biden recalled, he joined a Democratic caucus that included staunch segregationists, such as Herman Talmadge of Georgia and James Eastland of Mississippi. “He never called me boy, he always called me son,” Biden said of Eastland, before describing Talmadge as “one of the meanest guys I ever knew.” “At least there was some civility,” he continued.