AVERAGE JOE
Biden clears the (low) bar, Dems exhale with relief
Joe Biden had low expectations going into last night’s convention speech, but he did meet them, much to the relief of Democrats, writes columnist Michael Goodwin.
HE did it, he really did it. Joe Biden got through the biggest speech of his life cleanly and coherently, without stumbling or mumbling or getting that faraway dazed look in his eyes.
That sounds like an incredibly low bar because it is, but it reflects the honest and serious debate about Biden’s fitness. His age, 77, past health problems and the obvious signs that his faculties have been diminished raised the unprecedented possibility that he would not be able to carry out one of the routine performances of a majorparty nominee — give an acceptance speech.
Coming into his party’s virtual coronation, the test was not whether he would give a good speech or a bad speech. It was whether he could give a speech at all.
So congratulations to Biden for clearing a fundamental hurdle. Now the bar is raised and he should be treated as any other candidate. He can start by releasing his health and medical reports, which he has so far refused to do.
Most important, there is no excuse for him to hide any longer in his basement. Hidin’ Biden must be a thing of history.
He must come out into the sunshine and, while protecting himself from COVID, get on the campaign trail and take his claim to the presidency to the people of America.
If he can’t or won’t, how can he possibly be president? Would he isolate himself in the Oval Office?
The enormous promises he made about defeating the killer virus, creating jobs, combating climate change, “removing the stain of racism” and uniting the nation will mean nothing if he continues to shrink from public view.
So, too, his accusation that President Trump’s performance on COVID has been “unforgivable” and that giving the incumbent four more years would let him continue to “fan the flames of hate and division.”
Those claims must be challenged if voters are to be informed. Yet
Biden has so far refused to sit for interviews, making a major break with every other presidential campaign in modern times.
The talk that the Democrat would even skip the three fall debates, promoted by some of his supporters, is similarly unacceptable.
Joe Biden has broken the protective shell and he can’t now wrap himself in it again. Ever.
As for the actual content of the speech, it was more pedestrian than soaring, and the ideas were presented in simple, stark contrasts. Light vs. dark, hope vs. fear, almost always in short sentences.
Two notable points: He did not explicitly promise the huge, socialist-leaning items the left is demanding, though that hardly means the issues are settled. The aim from the Bernie Sanders wing is clearly to help Biden get elected, then move him to the far left.
Also missing was any mention of the violence convulsing the nation’s cities. These are no longer protests over George Floyd.
These are anarchists in Seattle and Portland and elsewhere attacking the police and the courts in