As two former Democratic presidents were scheduled to speak this week at the party’s national convention, our thoughts Tuesday remained on the sitting Democratic president, soon to become a fellow retiree. Both Barack Obama and Bill Clinton ran successfully for reelection, and neither was questioned or challenged by his own party at the time of choosing whether to seek another term.
Not so Joe Biden.
For someone who reached the pinnacle of American political success, Biden’s path was far more arduous than his Democratic forebears of recent times. He won the prize on his third try at age 77; his setbacks on the road to the mountaintop have been well documented.
Biden wanted only what was granted Clinton and Obama, whom Biden served well and loyally for eight years as vice president — the chance to run again on his record. That leaders in his own party didn’t allow that to happen — a correct decision, as we first said here on the morning after the disastrous debate — was the unspoken reality Monday night as the president delivered a goodbye speech tinged with disappointment and defiance.
Biden soaked in the adoration of the party faithful at the United Center. And he struck some graceful notes, with a full-throated endorsement of his vice president and now the Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris.
But most of the speech was a mini-State of the Union address that didn’t meet this moment.
He repeated many lines from stump speeches. The party faithful, waving their officially approved "Thank you, Joe” signs, wanted a valedictory address; those folks got a shouted campaign stemwinder, one heard many times before. Much of the country watching at home — at least those who bothered to stay up for the unconscionably late time slot — likely would also have preferred a more reflective tone.
Biden wants credit for what he feels he’s accomplished as president, and clearly he believes he’s been denied that.
He went through a laundry list. We understand. No one in the modern history of the presidency has given up a reelection bid so late in the process, and whether one agrees with his policies or not, Biden will be remembered as a consequential president.
But the most powerful parts of the speech were the few moments when he addressed his fate.
"I love my job, but I love my country more,” he said, failing of course to acknowledge that, had party leaders such as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi not intervened to compel him to do the right thing, he would have been the one on Thursday to accept the nomination. That would have been a very different evening at the United Center from the one now planned for the convention’s final night.
Biden’s remarking upon how he was so young when he was first elected senator from Delaware that he didn’t yet meet the Constitution’s threshold for serving in the chamber yet "now I’m too old to stay as president,” made for a rueful, human moment, all the more touching for taking place in a setting in which optics are everything and authenticity a happy accident.
The messy realities of human existence, whether for presidents of the United States or anyone else, aren’t what political conventions are designed to convey. There is pathos when an old lion admits that the ride is over. And Biden had to do so on the biggest of public stages. So it was egregious that the program ran so long and Biden didn’t take the stage until well after 10 pm, past prime time and with the United Center full of the fatigued.
No doubt that wasn’t the intent. But the error nonetheless amounted to a final indignity for Biden. He remains the president after all, and it wasn’t respectful. On a night in which Democrats otherwise delivered the message they intended and effectively prosecuted the case against another term for Donald Trump, it left a sour taste. The good news for Biden, finally stepping off the political stage at 81, is he doesn’t have to figure out what to do with himself professionally with decades of life remaining, as Clinton and Obama have had to do.
How to be an effective ex-president seems to us almost as tricky a job as serving in the office itself; only Jimmy Carter really seemed to figure it out by choosing a life of humble service to others.
Obama and Clinton, though, know the highs and lows of the office and thereafter. And they surely understand at least some of what Biden is going through. But Biden’s wounds are new and the president tellingly hightailed it west and out of town before the two Democratic two-termers took their turns in the spotlight.
Biden’s story is an American mythology at its peak in the 20th century. As he said, who could have foreseen a "kid with a stutter” growing up ordinary "Joey” in Scranton, Pennsylvania, would have been elected as the leader of the free world?
But the recent Democratic nominees other than him — Obama and Harris — are multi-ethnic Americans of different generations with backgrounds that tell a story of a newer version of this country than the one in which Biden came of age.
"America, America, I gave my best to you,” Biden intoned, quoting "American Anthem,” a song by Gene Scheer.
No question, Mr President. No question.