I confess that until he came out roaring loud and clear Thursday night in his State of the Union address, I thought President Joe Biden had lost a step or two, too — just as so many other Americans have been led to believe.
But the way he worked that room, I’ve changed my tune. He’s high energy, not low. He’s quick on his feet, and handled the weird heckling from the likes of Marjorie Taylor Greene in the Capitol audience like a pro — like a normal person. Whereas she looked like she’d just walked out of the nuthouse.
And he laid in right away to his November opponent, painting him properly as the kind of Quisling loser who a sane nation cannot return to the White House:
“What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time,” Biden said. “Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond. If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not.” Indeed, he would not. And yet his November opponent would roll over and invite Putin to do as he pleases.
“Now, my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want.’ A former American president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. It’s outrageous. It’s dangerous. It’s unacceptable.”
Damn right it’s unacceptable. I find it hard to believe that I have to say that, or that any American could consider voting for a candidate who would say that.
The president went on to note that Finland recently joined NATO for the first time. And just that day, Sweden had at last joined our crucial security alliance. And the Swedish prime minister was in the room.
Related: Biden’s State of the Union address was a spectacle of nonsense
Because the world wants and needs an America strong enough to be its leader, and, since going after Donald Trump’s plans to shrink from that duty is shooting fish in a barrel, Biden probably referred to the man he simply called his predecessor more than any president ever has in a State of the Union address. In fact, he used the word “predecessor” 13 times in the speech.
And so some Republicans are already complaining that the speech was “too political.” But Speaker Mike Johnson had pleaded with his Republican troops not to heckle the president during the speech, and yet they did, over and over — sounding eccentric and, well, crazy in the bargain.
Biden gave the lie to the notion that he is too old to be reelected with what you’ll have to admit is a pretty good line, one right from the Ronald Reagan playbook: “I know that it may not look like it, but I’ve been around for awhile.”
And by earlier in the speech referring to President Reagan proudly calling out a former Kremlin leader instead of kowtowing to him — quoting the indelible line, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall” — he’s properly appealing to the Republicans who remember a time when we didn’t shirk from our international duties. And what does the predecessor do?
He starts his night rallies with a recording of the so-called J6 Prison Choir singing from jail a little ditty called “Justice for All,” in which anti-American insurrectionists called to the Capitol riot by that predecessor crazily intone their love for him. There are 15 men featured in the video version of the tune that Trump loves so much; four of them who can be identified were charged with assaulting police with a crowbar and chemical sprays, including the attack on Officer Brian D. Sicknick. He died the next day. Not a predecessor America wants to see back in the White House.
Larry Wilson is on the Southern California News Group editorial board. lwilson@scng.com.