The Trail

-- Robert Barnes

EVENT CALLED NON-POLITICAL

Biden to Speak as Son Heads to Iraq

Joe Biden will speak Friday in Dover, Del., at the deployment ceremony for his son Beau, 39, who is headed to Iraq as part of a Delaware National Guard unit.

Aides to the Democratic vice presidential candidate said that the event was not political and that he was speaking as a father and senator. Beau Biden, who is Delaware's attorney general, is a member of the Army's Judge Advocate General Corps. In a news release, National Guard officials said he may serve as an army prosecutor. He will go to Fort Bliss, Tex., for training before heading to Iraq.

Biden's Republican counterpart, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, was accused of politicizing the service of her son Track, 18, last month when she spoke at his deployment ceremony, and Biden aides have tried to avoid a similar charge. At the same time, Beau Biden introduced his father at the Democratic National Convention, and his father occasionally mentions his son's service, unlike John McCain, who has avoided discussing the experiences of his son Jimmy, 19, a Marine who returned from a tour in Iraq in February.

"I'm proud, but I have to admit to you, I wish he wasn't going, I wish he wasn't going," the senator told "Entertainment Tonight" in an interview this week. Biden's wife, Jill, said in the same interview that "there is a lot of pride" but that "there's not a morning that I open my eyes that I don't say a prayer that he comes home safely."

-- Perry Bacon Jr.

QUICK POLLING

High Marks for All After Debate

Immediate reaction polls should be taken with a load of salt, but two of the best showed three winners in Thursday night's vice presidential showdown, with both candidates gaining ground and almost all those tuning in saying that moderator Gwen Ifill treated the rivals "fairly."