Once Joe Biden knuckled under to tremendous pressure to drop out of the race, Biden's advisers went out to proclaim he was like...George Washington? That was former Newsweek editor, "historian" and Biden speechwriter Jon Meacham on Monday's Morning Joe. Joe Scarborough read from his New York Times op-ed and put the gushy words on screen for his hardcore-Democrat audience.
"Mr. Biden has spent a lifetime trying to do right by the nation, and he did so in the most epic of ways when he chose to end his campaign for re-election. His decision is one of the most remarkable acts of leadership in our history. An act of self-sacrifice that places him in the company of George Washington, who also stepped away from the presidency."
Willie Geist told Meacham he was interested in his take as a Biden friend and adviser, but "also has a historian." Out came the flowery oration:
MEACHAM: Well, we're commemorating here a remarkable act of political sacrifice, self-sacrifice by a man of great grace and a president of great consequence. And understandably, we're talking about what happens now. That's what the republic does, what democracy does, and it's an organic thing, and it’s at risk. And it’s vital, as Mika said, we stand for the Constitution, the rule of law, and the kind of decency and dignity President Biden embodied.
There was an old Tennessee senator from my state who said that the only true cure for political ambition is embalming fluid. And so what you have here is someone who did assess reality. He -- as he often says, he respects fate. One would, given the arc of his life, which is punctuated by great victory, immense achievement and immense tragedy.
There is no more dreadfully overworked partisan life-story talking point than Biden tragically losing his family members. But then, Washington wasn't enough! Meacham found Biden parallels to Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 (he won in a landslide, but there was a Great Depression) and Abraham Lincoln in 1861:
And so this is a president who -- when people like me look back, we’re gonna look at someone who stepped into the breach in 2020, who defended democracy. You know, when you think about it, in many ways, the Biden presidency began on January 6th, 2021. And it was a moment where, remember how eerily empty the Capitol was once the protesters, the rioters, the insurrectionists were gone?
He stood in that strangely quiet West front to step into a moment in which democracy itself was under the greatest siege it'd been since FDR had been there in 1933. And before that, since Abraham Lincoln had been there, both of them on the other side of the Capitol in 1861. And that's not overly grand. That’s not hyperbolic, as President Biden would say. It is, I think, a cold-eyed assessment of the reality of the history of the moment.
Since this is MSNBC, it’s never hyperbolic to suggest that a Trump victory ends American democracy. Meacham has consistently beat that drum. The other completely preposterous note is that Biden unified us in an atmosphere of mutual respect. Don't the libs call that "Earth 2"?
President Biden stepped in and he bent history in what I would argue, and I think most of the folks here would agree, is a very American -- you can disagree with the policy details, you can disagree with the emphasis here or there, but, by God, the American consensus in which we actually recognize and respect each other fundamentally, and are together enough to try to make this a more perfect union, we are a more perfect union because of President Biden. I think history is going to laud him for it, and I hope the president does, as well.
