Obama Eulogizes Beau Biden

The Bidens bid farewell to Beau Biden today in Delaware, with President Obama delivering the eulogy. "He was a scion of an incredible family who brushed away the possibility of privilege for the harder, better reward of earning his own way," said the president, as per AP. And NBC notes that Obama made reference to a car crash decades ago that killed Beau Biden's mother and sister and left a young Beau and his brother injured: "Rather than use his childhood trauma for justification for a life of self-pity or self-centeredness, that very young boy made a very grown-up decision: He would live a life of meaning, he would live a life for others."

He called the former Delaware attorney general a "consummate public servant" and a "man of character," adding that, "like his father, Beau did not have a mean bone in his body. From his dad, he learned how to get back up when life got him down." The 46-year-old died of brain cancer. Joe Biden's request that the president deliver the eulogy "underscored just how much the personal relationship between the two men has evolved in the seven years since they first forged their political partnership," says the Washington Post. (More Beau Biden stories.)