Delaware Grapevine: The return of Beau Biden, Part II (I guess I missed Part I)

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By Celia Cohen, Political columnist
Dover Post
Posted Jun 30, 2010 @ 10:46 AM
Dover, Del. —
There were bagpipes and speeches and a swarm of Secret Service agents the last time Beau Biden made his public return at Legislative Hall in Dover. Just handshakes and hugs and a sea of smiles this time.

It is one day short of nine months since Biden paraded home with the Delaware Army National Guard, a Democratic attorney general gone to war in Iraq as a JAG captain.

The brigade was welcomed back in a grand ceremony in front of Legislative Hall with state police bagpipes, as well as a speech by Joe Biden, prouder to be a soldier’s father than the Democratic vice president, and a wonderful counting from General Frank Vavala. All home. All safe.

Someone could have made a lot of money that day by betting that Beau Biden would not run for his father’s old Senate seat in 2010 but would have a stroke.

No one could make this stuff up, not even hyped on magic mushrooms.

The Senate race was waylaid by the unimaginable case of a shaggy pediatrician accused of preying on his own patients, and then Biden himself was sidetracked, too, a stroke coming out of the blue to a 41-year-old fit enough to run long stretches at sub-seven minute miles.

The stroke was seven weeks ago. Biden got back to the Attorney General’s Office on Monday and made his first public appearance on Tuesday at a bill-signing ceremony in the governor’s office, Legislative Hall doing the honors once again.

It was not much of a bill, a one-page measure upping the jail time for illegally carrying a concealed handgun, something that appears to have little purpose beyond letting Sen. Brian Bushweller and Rep. Larry Mitchell, the Democratic co-sponsors, remind voters they are law-and-order men.

Never mind the bill. The office was filled. Jack Markell, the Democratic governor, surveyed the press corps, including five television cameras, wanting to get a look at Biden and cracked, “I’m going to ask Sen. Bushweller to come back for more of these, so that so many cameras show up.”

Then they got to the real business. Markell welcomed Biden, who spoke briefly.

“It’s great to be back. I’m very, very grateful for the thoughts and prayers of so many people across the state of Delaware, up and down the state of Delaware, who sent cards, notes, emails, text messages, many of which I have not yet returned, expressing that they’re thinking about me and concerned about my health, and offering prayers,” Biden said.

“You feel those prayers.”

He promised he would see his fellow Delawareans at the Fourth of July parades. He also took some time to make the rounds in Legislative Hall.

“He looks wonderful. He looks well-rested and very fit and as charming as ever,” said Nancy Cook, a Democratic senator who co-chairs the Joint Finance Committee.

“He looks good. He said the whole thing was kind of a fluke, that he’d run four miles the night before. He said he probably should have done what everybody else did and take a month off when he came home from Iraq,” said Liane Sorenson, a Republican senator who is the minority whip.

Biden also passed muster with the professional eye of Bethany Hall-Long, a Democratic senator who is a nursing professor at the University of Delaware.

“He looked really good. It’s not uncommon for people, when they’re in their 40s, under a lot of stress, drinking a lot of coffee. Mother Nature does a good thing with a wakeup call,” Hall-Long said.

It is not the first time for this family. Joe Biden was out of commission for half a year from brain aneurysms, coming when he was 45 after the strain of a failed campaign for president.

Beau Biden did seem in fine shape — politically, too. The Republicans still have not found someone to run against him for attorney general.

“Once the legislative session is over, we’ll be looking hard to find a real good candidate,” said Laird Stabler, the Republican national committeeman.

Finally, something normal. Biden’s next return will not be up to generals or doctors, but voters.

http://www.middletowntranscript.com/newsnow/x1876472631/Delaware-Grapevine-The-return-of-Beau-Biden-Part-II