A Biden Blast
By Richard C. Gross
“Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.”
--William Shakespeare, “The Comedy of Errors,” Act III, Scene 1
Bottom line: A long-awaited feisty and fiery speech about freedom and democracy and how convicted fraud and sexual abuser Donald Trump and his blind Republican lap dog followers would take it from us.
A worked-up President Joe Biden delivered a State of the Union address that prompted repeated standing ovations and seated applause from Democrats that contrasted sharply with sullen, yawning, shamed Republicans slumping like bored pouting middle schoolers.
Biden’s obvious aim was to show Americans he is very much alive, tuned in and quite able and ready to attack Trump and his sycophants. He referred to him as his predecessor, never mentioning his name.
It was a masterful performance from an 81-year-old leader repeatedly denounced as “Sleepy Joe” by bully Trump. Biden was wide awake in beating back shouted criticism from wingnut Republicans on the floor of the House. His forceful delivery and retorts to shouted Republican taunts were more the actions of someone 61 than 81, an age to be welcomed for its reflection of endurance and wisdom, not shamed.
Biden couldn’t have come across as anything but presidential, glowing with optimism about the present and future of America and how Americans were making the biggest comeback from despair and a crushing pandemic that killed a million of us. Trump ignored the danger and the dying, resorting to such absurd remedies as injecting bleach to kill the COVID virus.
“It doesn’t make the news, but in thousands of cities and towns the American people are writing the greatest comeback story never told,” Biden told the joint session of Congress. “America’s comeback is building a future of American possibilities, building an economy from the middle out and the bottom up, not the top down, investing in all of America — in all Americans — to make sure everyone has a fair shot and we leave no one behind.”
That reference to “top down” was a direct blast at Republican tax cuts aimed at corporations and the wealthy. Trump’s $1.9 trillion tax cut, which originally was estimated to cost $1.5 trillion in revenue over 10 years. It’s way beyond that now.
Biden’s vision of America is a bright contrast to the negative “American carnage” Trump mouthed in his inaugural address in 2016.
The former president’s nonstop painting a dark vision of America as a Third World country is very much active, quite possibly a good reason why polling for years has shown a public disenchanted with the way things are going even though so much has improved, from the economy to employment, to wages and to the tone of leadership and the absence of repeated firings and government chaos.
“We’re a Third World country at our borders, and we’re a Third World country at our elections,” a somber Trump told a crowd celebrating his victorious Super Tuesday primaries, a free world competition for democratic leadership.
Biden blamed Trump for the slide in how the country is viewed by its people, warning that electing a conservative facing four criminal trials totaling indictments for 91 felonies will mean a loss of freedoms, exemplified by the Supreme Court’s withdrawal of the constitutional right to abortion.
And lest we forget, Trump said he would be “a dictator for a day” if elected. He’s lying, isn’t he? Once a dictator, always a dictator. Once a pathological liar, always a pathological liar. He lied 30,573 times during his four years in the White House, The Washington Post counted.
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today,” Biden said, raising his voice. “What makes our moment rare is the freedom of democracy, under attack both at home and overseas.”
That last obviously was a reference to Russia’s attack two years ago against neighboring Ukraine, a stab at trying to restore an empire that collapsed in 1991. The Republicans are against giving more aid to Ukraine, citing their “America First” rubric.
Biden went after Trump for his undiscerning treatment of Russian President Vladimir Putin and blasted him for encouraging Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who don’t spend agreed amounts for the alliance.
“If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop in Ukraine, I assure you he will not,” the president said. “We will not walk away. We will not bow down” to Trump’s and Republican demands to halt aid to Ukraine. “I will not bow down”
Trump shot back on his social media site, “Putin only invaded Ukraine because he has no respect for Biden,” according to The New York Times. What malarky, as Biden would put it. Trump the liar just says anything that pops into his pumpkin-colored head.
Biden also sought to quash severe criticism by Democrats and progressives about his handling of the Gaza war in the face of more than 30,000 Palestinians dead since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel on Oct. 7, savagely killing 1,200 and taking about 250 others hostage. Israeli retaliation with repeated bombing has virtually leveled Gaza, causing rampant hunger.
The United States will build a temporary pier on Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline so that ships can bring in more food and other needed supplies that air drops cannot satisfy. Cyprus, an island about 150 miles from
Gaza, will be a staging area for the humanitarian effort.
“Israel also has a fundamental responsibility, though, to protect innocent civilians in Gaza,” Biden warned.
He is faced with the daunting task to prove that he is not too old to deal with the heavy responsibilities of the presidency and to reassure Americans that our country is not in the bad shape Trump wishes it would be. He got a good start on that during his State of the Union address. More power to him.
Richard C. Gross, who covered war and peace in the Middle East and the Pentagon, was foreign editor of United Press International and the opinion page editor of The Baltimore Sun.