US President Barack Obama on Thursday surprised US Vice President Joe Biden by bestowing the Presidential Medal of Freedom on him, calling Biden “my brother” in a tearful goodbye at the White House.
Having called Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, to the White House for a private farewell, the US president instead brought him into a room filled with his friends, family and colleagues to present him with the honor, the nation’s highest.
For the first time, Obama awarded the medal with distinction, an added level of veneration that previous US presidents had reserved for recipients like Pope John Paul II and former US secretary of state Colin Powell.
“To know Joe Biden is to know love without pretense, service without self-regard and to live life fully,” Obama said during the televised ceremony, as Biden wiped tears from his eyes and dabbed at his nose with a handkerchief.
Moments later, as Obama called up a military aide to read the proclamation, Biden appeared to break down, turning his back to the audience to compose himself. After Obama hung the medal around his neck, the US vice president cried openly.
“Ricchetti, you’re fired,” Biden joked to his chief of staff, Steve Ricchetti. “I had no inkling.”
Addressing Obama, who stood to his side, Biden said that he had never met anyone who had “the integrity and the decency and the sense of other people’s needs like you do.”
The ceremony was an emotional conclusion to an improbable partnership that began in 2008 when Obama asked his former US presidential rival to be his running mate. The two men became close during eight years in the White House.
“Mr President, you got right the part about my leaning on Jill,” Biden said, referring to the US president’s remarks about the couple’s love. “But I’ve also leaned on you and a lot of people in this room.”
It was not always clear that the odd-couple pairing would work, either politically or personally. Obama brought a cool and disciplined approach to politics, while his vice president was the hotheaded, passionate one.
Gaffes by Biden during the early part of the Obama administration annoyed the US president and his aides, and the relationship between the two men was strained when Biden endorsed same-sex marriage in 2012, forcing the US president’s hand on the issue.
However, their bond strengthened throughout the difficult re-election campaign and a second term in which they confronted several mass killings. Biden’s personal tragedy — the loss of his son, Beau Biden, to cancer — brought them even closer together.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese