Biden calls Senate 'my second family'

by Frank James

Vice President-elect Joe Biden delivered his valedictory address to the Senate today in a lengthy, sometimes rambling speech in which he spoke of the Senate legends he had known and the importance of the Senate as an institution.

He tells a wonderful story about Sen. John Stennis, the Mississippi Dixiecrat senator whose transformation from segregationist to someone who eventually acknowledged the important changes wrought by the Civil Rights movement mirrored changes in the nation which would eventually lead to the election of the first African American president.

And, in one of the more touching moments, he tells of how the Senate helped him heal after the death of his wife and baby daughter in a car crash. He told the senators they were his "second family."

Of course, Biden will be back in the Senate as its presiding officer, the only constitutional duty the vice president is given. So farewell is not always goodbye.