Vice President Biden's son has died at 46.

The New York Times reports:

Joseph R. Biden III, the former attorney general of Delaware and the eldest son of Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., has died of brain cancer. . . .

Mr. Biden’s death marks a second tragic loss for the vice president, whose first wife, Neilia, and 13-month-old daughter, Naomi, were killed in a car accident in 1972 when the station wagon they were driving in to go Christmas shopping was hit by a tractor-trailer. Beau Biden and his brother, Hunter, were also injured in the crash, but both survived." . . .

In a short, emotional speech introducing his father at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Mr. Biden recalled the tragedy that had touched his family, describing the moments after the crash.

“One of my earliest memories was being in that hospital, Dad always at our side. We, not the Senate, were all he cared about,” Mr. Biden said. “He decided not to take the oath of office. He said, ‘Delaware can get another senator, but my boys can’t get another father.’ However, great men like Ted Kennedy, Mike Mansfield, Hubert Humphrey — men who had been tested themselves — convinced him to serve. So he was sworn in, in the hospital, at my bedside.”

I remember being touched when Vice President Biden, in the 2008 vice presidential debate, alluded to the fact that he, Sarah Palin, and John McCain had sons who'd been deployed to Iraq (transcript):

We measure progress in America based on whether or not someone can pay their mortgage, whether or not they can send their kid to college, whether or not they're able to, when they send their child, like we have abroad — or I'm about to, abroad — and John has as well, I might add — to fight, that they are the best equipped and they have everything they need. And when they come home, they're guaranteed that they have the best health care and the best education possible. . . .

May God bless all of you, and most of all, for both of us, selfishly, may God protect our troops.

Joseph "Beau" Biden kept serving as Delaware's AG while serving in Iraq.




(Photo via Brian Frosh, cropped by Wikipedia.)