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Blogs Eric Reads
Jill Biden’s Mother Passed Away Today
In case you haven’t already heard:
Bonny Jean Jacobs, 78, the mother-in-law of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, died Sunday after a long illness, a spokesman for Mr. Biden said.
Mr. Biden, of Delaware, has canceled all campaign appearances Monday and Tuesday to be with his wife, Jill Jacobs Biden, and their families.
Mrs. Jacobs had been in hospice care in the Philadelphia suburbs, not far from the Bidens’ home in Wilmington, Del.
Mrs. Jacobs was the widow of Donald C. Jacobs, a savings and loan executive from Willow Grove, Pa., who died in 1999. Mrs. Jacobs stayed home to raise Jill and her four younger sisters. The couple was married for 50 years.
Condolences to the Biden family.
RIP Paul Newman
The Oscar-winning actor and salad dressing magnate died last night after a long battle with cancer. He was 83.
NBC’s Russert Dies of Heart Attack at 58
Very sad news today from NBC.
Tim Russert, NBC News’ Washington bureau chief and the moderator of “Meet the Press,” died Friday after a sudden heart attack at the bureau, NBC News said Friday. He was 58.
Russert was recording voiceovers for Sunday’s “Meet the Press” program when he collapsed, the network said. He and his family had recently returned from Italy, where they celebrated the graduation of Russert’s son, Luke, from Boston College.
No further details were immediately available.
Update: Emotional reflections from NBC Political Director Chuck Todd:
Rep. Tom Lantos, Holocaust Survivor, Dies
Tom Lantos, a U.S. Congressman (D-CA) and survivor of the Holocaust, passed away Monday morning at Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland. He was 80 years old and had been suffering from cancer of the esophagus. He was the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and he had announced that he would serve out his current term but not seek reelection.
Lantos, who referred to himself as an American by choice, was born to Jewish parents in Budapest, Hungary, and was 16 when Adolf Hitler occupied Hungary in 1944. He survived by escaping twice from a forced labor camp and coming under the protection of Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who used his official status and visa-issuing powers to save thousands of Hungarian Jews.
Lantos’ mother and much of his family perished in the Holocaust.
That background gave Lantos a moral authority unique in Congress and he used it repeatedly to speak out on foreign policy issues, sometimes courting controversy. He was a strong supporter of Israel and a lead advocate for the 2002 congressional resolution authorizing the Iraq war, though he would come to be a strong critic of the Bush administration’s strategy.
In 2006 Lantos was one of five members of Congress arrested in a protest outside the Sudanese Embassy over the genocide in Darfur.
Congressman Lantos was a good man and a friend of human rights worldwide. Zichron tzadik livracha–may the memory of this righteous man be a blessing.