• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 26, 2024

For many, President Biden’s live, televised farewell speech on Wednesday night was moving and historic. 

The visuals were the same as other Oval Office addresses delivered by presidents past and present in the television era.

The American flag, the flag of the Presidency and gold curtains framed the window behind President Biden. Behind him were framed family photos displayed on a credenza.

He sat at the presidential desk known as the Resolute Desk. This was a desk made from oak timbers from a British naval ship, the HMS Resolute.

Queen Victoria gifted the desk to President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880, and it has been used by most, but not all, presidents ever since.

Let it also be said that the President’s delivery was stronger than his recent public appearances that derailed his candidacy for a second term. He looked and sounded good. 

As always, the Oval Office setting was dressed to impress. Unseen were a lot of other decorative items, according to the President.

He noted the presence of portraits of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, and praised them both for their roles in founding the United States of America.

I gave him credit for praising Washington and Jefferson. Discrediting and diminishing their contributions to the process of American independence because they were slaveholders is fashionable among members of his own party.

He invoked the names of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt too, and later inventoried the busts of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks and Cesar Chavez, also on display but off-camera.

In stepping off the presidential stage, Biden said he would now “pass the torch to a new generation” -- a passage paraphrased from President Kennedy’s famed inauguration speech in 1961.

The cynical side of me wondered whether President Biden was including himself in this august company, as if he stands shoulder to shoulder with Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, Roosevelt and Kennedy.

Most of this 11-minute speech was aimed at positioning the Democrats for victory in November, although he adopted the ploy of implication rather than specificity. 

He never named Donald Trump, and never used the words “Democrat” or “Republican.” He did name Kamala Harris when, not surprisingly, he endorsed her to succeed him.

But when he used words such as “hope,” “unity,” “hate” and “division,” it was obvious which parties he meant.

The first two words referred implicitly to Democrats. “Hate” and “division” were laid at the feet of Republicans. These characterizations are caricatures, not fact.

The truth is that neither party in any way seeks to unify anything. This is the problem that can be said to underscore everything that is wrong with our politics today.

“In recent weeks it has become clear to me that I need to unify my party in this critical endeavor,” Biden said.

But it is the entire country that needs unifying, not just the Democrats. They’re already unified in their support of Kamala Harris, and their opposition to Donald Trump. 

If anyone can present evidence that Joe Biden is the Great Unifier of everyone, then I am all ears.

A number of times he framed this election as an inflection point in history, both foreign and domestic -- a claim that could be made in any election year. Isn’t this always the case?

For Biden, nothing less than “the soul of America” is at stake. He positioned the clash between Democrats and Republicans as a choice between saving us all or plunging us into the darkness of dictatorship --- classic textbook pre-election scare tactics.

He also invoked the January 6, 2021 insurrection and invasion of the Capitol as “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

That might actually be so, and Biden’s mentioning of it signaled rightfully that January 6 will be a powerful talking point in the campaign, as it should be.

“We are a great nation because we are good people,” Biden said, in the best sentence in the whole speech. 

Thanks for the compliment, Mr. President. You have now had your opportunity to say farewell. Good-bye and God bless.