MSNBC launched right out of President Biden’s speech at the United Nations with praise from “objective” newspaper journalists about it hit “all the right notes,” that “you couldn’t get the words, the sheet of music much better than this.”
New York Times diplomatic correspondent Michael Crowley seized on how Biden could say America is no longer at war, which is at contrast with 20 years of American war-making after 9/11...including (ahem) eight years of Obama-Biden:
There is a lot of real work ahead, but I think that that this speech hit all the right notes for this audience. It was just striking how consummate the theme in this speech was of global cooperation. We're stronger if we work together. He was defining himself against an America of the last 20 years that was often seen as militaristic. He kept invoking this idea that two decades of war is over. And although eight years of that time was under President Obama, who was quite internationalist in work with allies, it was still the kind of post-9/11 era, where America was seen as, you know, having a very strong, aggressive military presence around the world.
Biden was trying to say, we're turning the page on that. This era of war is over and really unveiling this ambitious vision of a cooperative world, where through diplomacy and peaceful means, you can alleviate poverty and increase human dignity. Now it's awfully ambitious, probably a lot of it, sadly, will not come to pass. But I think those are the right -- those are the right notes for him to be playing.
Notice that they're saying Biden's globalist rhetoric is music to the ears of the United Nations audience, and liberals don't question whether the aspirations of the United Nations audience can be quite a contrast with what a domestic audience wants. In front of an ugly painting, Washington Post columnist and Morning Joe regular David Ignatius called it an "ambitious speech":
I think President Biden touched on all of the traditional themes of American internationalism, the very foundation of the united nations is part of the internationalist ideology that President Biden was sharing. What a contrast with President Trump, who disdained this sort of collective approach to international problems. It was really reanchoring the U.S. in the kind of words and values that the world associates with us.
The challenges are that this is a very complicated world. Making unilateral agreements work today, responding to problems on the level of global climate change, the global COVID pandemic have proven very, very difficult. So president Biden was using the rhetoric of collective, cooperative action, promising new programs, new money for climate change. A new vaccine available for our friends around the world, and an America that is not going to be burdened going forward with more – I thought the line Michael mentioned that is absolutely central to this speech, for the first time in 20 years, the U.S. Is not at war. It's a powerful statement to this group. And the second powerful statement he said is, “we will not go it alone.” I think that -- you know, those things resonate, the challenges are just how complicated the problems are. But I think in terms of a good speech, you couldn't get the words, the sheet of music better than this.
No one said "Biden uncorked a lot of empty platitudes about inflection points in history and global challenges, and no one will remember this by next Tuesday." Because MSNBC would find that too cynical....when Democrats are in charge.
