The Washington Post – by Paul Kane
Joseph Robinette “Beau” Biden III, the son of Vice President Biden and former state attorney general of Delaware, died Saturday after battling brain cancer for several years.
Biden, 46, the oldest son of the vice president and the rising star of a family dynasty, had been admitted recently to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda as he fought the cancer, a battle that his father largely kept private in the last weeks as his son clung to his life.
“The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us — especially through his brave wife, Hallie, and two remarkable children, Natalie and Hunter,” Vice President Biden said in a statement that was released Saturday night.
Beau Biden, a major in the Delaware Army National Guard’s Judge Advocate General Corps, became one of his state’s most popular public figures and had been considered the front-runner for the 2016 race to become the state’s next governor, but in August 2013 he was admitted to one of the world’s most renowned cancer treatment centers, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, to begin his fight with the disease.
According to the vice president’s office, Beau Biden underwent surgery in Houston in 2013 and then followed a normal course of radiation and chemotherapy. By November 2013, he had been given a clean bill of health, but after a recurrence this spring, Biden began an aggressive treatment and was admitted to Walter Reed this month.
Biden is survived by his wife, Hallie, and two children.
President Obama released a statement late Saturday saying that he and first lady Michelle Obama were grieving and calling him “a good, big-hearted, devoutly Catholic and deeply faithful man, who made a difference in the lives of all he touched — and he lives on in their hearts.”
“But for all that Beau Biden achieved in his life, nothing made him prouder; nothing made him happier; nothing claimed a fuller focus of his love and devotion than his family,” Obama’s statement said.
Beau Biden became a national political star in 2008 after delivering a stirring introduction of his father at the Democratic National Convention in Denver the night Joe Biden accepted the nomination for vice president. A little more than a month later, Beau Biden deployed to Iraq and served there for one year — except for a trip home in January 2009 to see his father take the oath of office as vice president.
Beau Biden was awarded the Bronze Star.
In Denver seven years ago, Beau Biden told the tragic family story that became the emotional foundation for his father’s 36 years of service in the Senate and the past 6 1/2 years as vice president. Shortly after winning his Senate race, in December 1972, Joe Biden received a phone call while in Washington interviewing staff.
His wife, Neilia, and three children had been in a horrible car crash on the way home from purchasing the family Christmas tree. His wife and daughter had died, and his two sons, Beau and Hunter, were clinging to life. Having just turned 30, Joe Biden raced home to Wilmington and considered never taking the oath of office.
Through the support of other senators, Biden agreed to be sworn in the next month at the hospital bedside of Beau and Hunter. Eventually venturing to Washington, Biden decided that he would take the train every morning from Wilmington and return every night.
“As a single parent, he decided to be there to put us to bed, to be there when we woke from a bad dream, to make us breakfast, so he’d travel to and from Washington, four hours a day,” Beau Biden told the Denver crowd on Aug. 27, 2008, in the speech that introduced the world to a story that his father had told many times.
In recent weeks, the vice president’s public schedule had declined as he regularly visited his son. Two weeks ago, during Yale University’s graduation ceremonies, he delivered a deeply personal speech to thousands of students and parents who had no idea what the vice president was personally enduring.
Close advisers viewed it as the closest Joe Biden ever came to fully explaining how much his personal life and tragedy informed his own career. Of his Amtrak ride home every night to see his two sons, he said that it wasn’t for them.
“The real reason I went home every night was that I needed my children more than they needed me,” he told the Yale crowd.
Beau Biden attended his father’s high school, Archmere Academy, was class president and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He then got his law degree from Syracuse University, out of devotion to his deceased mother, who graduated from that college. Joe Biden, originally considering other law schools, decided to attend Syracuse Law after falling in love with Neilia Hunter.
Beau Biden was elected Delaware’s attorney general in 2006 and was considered the likely candidate to take his father’s Senate seat after he left to become vice president. Ted Kaufman — the vice president’s closest confidant and former chief of staff — was appointed as an interim senator, but eventually Beau Biden decided to run for reelection as attorney general in 2010 rather than try to claim his father’s Senate seat, charting his own political path toward one day becoming governor.
In recent weeks Kaufman has returned to Vice President Biden’s side, working with him again as he dealt with the looming tragedy of his son’s death.
“More than his professional accomplishments, Beau measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother. His absolute honor made him a role model for our family. Beau embodied my father’s saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did,” the vice president said Saturday in his statement.
Paul Kane covers Congress and politics for the Washington Post.
You beat me to it #1. My grandson had me up at the crack of dawn making bacon and chocolate chip pancakes. Whatcha doing up so early?
Early, Deb? LOL… I slept till after 11 this morning… had a few beers with Ryan at the VFW last night.
Sent this one in at 9:24 last night. 🙂
That explains it #1. I rarely turn on the tv. I saw it on the “news” this morning while flipping channels looking for some wholesome cartoons. LOL
Hey have you tried the new trend? There’s an ale that taste just like root beer. I think it’s called “not your grandfathers root beer”. It’s really good! Hope you guys had fun last night.
Ugh! Sounds horrible, Deb. I like beer for its bitterness. In fact, the only reason I go there (rarely) is because they have Deschute’s Black Butte Porter on tap, one of the few beers I can stand.
Taste is a funny thing. Toss in a scoop of vanilla ice cream, you be having a root beer float with a slightly high alcohol content. 🙂
brain cancer huh? I wonder why they didn’t give him the cure. Or maybe sons of second rate minions don’t warrant a cure. They didn’t give Steve Jobs the cure. They probably said something like “Hey, sorry Steve, you got that ONE kinda cancer we don’t have a cure for yet. Sorry buddy.”
Isn’t that the same dude that took charge of a energy company in Ukraine area
more recently?
Maybe it’s the chemtrails or whatever… but somehow I’m left wondering if this thing is real or contrived. -He may have just gone ‘underground’ with the other toadies.
As for John Kerry, he just wanted out of work and is faking it…come on, ‘Faux N00Z’? Perhaps Kerry heard about Biden the younger and wanted to hit that before the body gets too cold!
“Isn’t that the same dude that took charge of a energy company in Ukraine area more recently?”
That’s the other son, R. Hunter: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-07-25/company-which-joe-bidens-son-director-prepares-drill-shale-gas-east-ukraine
Just like my previous comment about the American Express Exec.
“And another one’s gone, another one’s gone, another one bites the dust”. Great song by Queen. I’ll be humming that tune all day, ain’t it great, dropping like flies.
I’m glad he’s dead, and it’s a shame his Dad didn’t die with him, because the two of them probably spend all day with the cell phone pressed against their heads.
Rising star of a dynasty of what ? Kissing little children with the grace of a fiendish pedophile ? I agree JR, dead is dead, but would rather have see some massive collateral damage to dad. Ugh brain cancer and natural causes is so 2001.
“… died Saturday after battling brain cancer for several years.”
I’m calling bullsh#t on this one.
One needs to actually possess a brain to begin with to be able to die of brain cancer.
“The entire Biden family is saddened beyond words. We know that Beau’s spirit will live on in all of us…”
Through demonic possession, maybe.
You can keep my ‘portion’.
Today is my 3 year anniversary on FTT. This is the very first comment I ever posted here…
“Don’t End the Propaganda Ban on American Citizens”
NWO hatr says:
May 31, 2012 at 10:20 am
I’m so devastated! The government would’nt really consider actually making it LEGAL to tell us lies & propaganda, would they? Aren’t they only looking out for our best interests? I’m seriously considering voting them all out of office next election!
Naturally, I was being facetious about the voting thing.
As if you didn’t already know that. 😉
I tip my hat to you #1!
I’ll one up you Millard. I curtsy you #1.
I’ll give you a hearty back slap for your first comment. 😉
I guess I could “moon” him! 😆
ROFL 🙂 go Millard!
I honestly never thought the insanity would last this long, and I honestly don’t think what little sanity I have left would have lasted this long either, if not for FTT.
THANK YOU, HENRY & LAURA, FOR THE BEST TRUTHER SITE AVAILABLE TODAY!!!
YOU ROCK!!!!!
Don’t feel bad #1. I never thought it could go on this long either. Henry asks all the time, what’s it going to take? Apparently lots and lots. We (our family) has fought long and hard, and we surely thought others would see things for what they really are, but no. It’s been crickets. That’s a good portion of our nation. They don’t realize what is really going on due to the bread and circuses. This insane world we live in will continue, until the comfort zone is ripped away from the sleeping masses.
And yes, this is the best site on the net. Cudos to Henry and Laura, and everyone on LTR.
I agree #1, thank you Henry and Laura for providing this forum. I feel lucky to be here.
AND STAY DEAD!
I hope your bloodline whimpers into nothing. In fact Im banking on it…
At second glance. This ass hat has EVERY reason to be an MKultra or similar mind control. Walter reed is involved… The catholic church… Washington polotics… Military… Hell this dope could be a manchurian candidate, who services dick cheney nightly and the brain cancer was a front for why he was having work done to his shoulder pimple. Look at his eyes… he looks dazed yet hyper-focused.
Biden’s son died? That’s strange. Why would the Zionists allow one of their own to die? Especially over something like brain cancer. How come they don’t let Kissinger, Rockefeller, Cheney and McCain croak? (Just to name a few)
And how come they haven’t talked about him having brain cancer in the news? This seems sudden and if it is, it also would seem kinda shady. But that’s just me.
You know what’s coming. Concentrated Cannabis Oil…. Lol. I’m a broken record.
I’m wondering what orders his daddy didn’t follow that warranted the demise of the son.
. . .
BIDEN BIDEN BEAU BIDEN BANANA FANNA JOE BIDEN BIDEN BIDEN BEAU BIDEN, BIDEN (sing to the tune of “THE NAME GAME” song)
When I heard about this, the person said it was very sad and I said, “I thought you would be happy, another GD Democrat is dead”. She was not happy. When FOX news showed the funeral of Kennedy, I told her, this is not right. Why is not FOX people dancing and singing “Ding dong the witch is dead”??