• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, March 8, 2024

Anyone who tuned into the State of the Union address last night expecting -- or perhaps hoping -- to see Joe Biden suddenly lose his place, run out of gas or fall asleep had to be disappointed.

The President’s age, physical stamina and cognitive acuity were all anybody could talk about in the lead-up to the speech. His detractors wanted him to falter. His supporters held their breath.

In the end, he surprised everyone. Though the speech may have been past his bedtime (sorry, just joking), Biden was vigorous and his voice forceful.

On TV, he came across not as an 81-year-old in his dotage, but as a veteran career politician who successfully positioned his age and experience as assets, not defects.

The best moments of the speech were when he addressed Republicans directly in the language of the U.S. Senate, calling out some of them by name, and reminding us all that politics on the level practiced by the Joe Bidens of the world takes years to master.

True, there were many moments when the President faltered. Sentences ran together and words were slurred. 

One of the more curious passages was when he launched into an initiative that would hold snack food brands accountable for filling their snack bags with fewer potato chips than they used to. 

He then said something about Snickers bars not having enough “Snickers” in them, or something to that effect. 

And then, suddenly, he segued from junk food to junk fees. Was this just a coincidence, or did his speechwriters juxtapose these two issues on purpose?

This was about halfway into the speech, and fragments of his sentences were beginning to blur into intelligibility. It began to look like the President was on the precipice of a decline. 

And then, he wasn’t. Indeed, as the speech wore on, he actually seemed to gain strength -- a warrior right at home in a chamber he knew well.

It was Biden’s fourth State of the Union speech as president, but at least the 50th that he has attended, one TV commentator noted.

Multiple commentators also pointed out that the timing of this year’s SOTU was perhaps without precedent, held just two days after a Super Tuesday primary day that virtually locked in the President’s opponent in the presidential campaign.

In this context, some of the commentators positioned the speech as the unofficial start of the Biden reelection campaign.

Indeed, the speech included multiple negative references to Trump, although the former President was never referred to by name. 

The President referred to Vladimir Putin by name, though, in one of the first sections of the speech in which he called on Congress to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Biden vowed never to bow down to Putin, which struck me as a terribly worded passage of the speech, for it conjured an image of a U.S. President actually bowing down to a dictator.

Besides, to my knowledge, no one has accused Biden of “bowing down” to Putin or anybody else.

The speech started at 9:25 p.m. Eastern and ended an hour and eight minutes later -- relatively short by SOTU standards.

Biden spent the last few minutes of the speech telling us his life story in the manner of a campaign speech.

It seemed out of place in a speech that is supposed to be about the country -- “the Union,” as in “State of the Union,” not the “State of Joe Biden.”