Meredith Newman, Delaware News Journal
Published
4:36 am UTC Jan. 21, 2021
WASHINGTON, D.C. For his first presidential act, Joe Biden asked America to pray.
Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol, as he addressed the country for the first time as president, Biden’s view was not of a sea of thousands at the National Mall, but of thousands of flags memorializing the Americans who have died of COVID-19.
The silent prayer, Biden said, would be for the 400,000 victims of the pandemic, for their families, for the country.
And then the president bowed his head.
“This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward,” Biden said in his inaugural address. “And we must meet this moment as the United States of America.”
Delaware is a tiny state. The joke is there are no degrees of separation.
We always ask people where they went to high school because we know that s where we ll find our Delaware connection. And we usually do.
President Joe Biden s son Beau was a few years younger than I was. We didn t go to the same schools in Delaware, but we knew some of the same people. Our paths crossed every once in a while, especially when he was attorney general. That s just Delaware.
Back in 2002, I was assigned to write a feature story on a guy who had decided to become a politician. I had to follow this guy around to many events. While I had covered the late Sen. Bill Roth s last campaign, I was struggling with this assignment.