Vice President Joe Biden did two things in the White House Rose Garden yesterday. He simultaneously ended any presidential dreams he had, while assuming total control of the moral high ground in the 2016 race.
“While I will not be a candidate,” he said, “I will not be silent.”
Honestly, who else can lay claim to that narrow sliver of real estate these days? What Joe Biden spoke of yesterday were values that transcended self-interest and the narrow parameters of “liberal” and “conservative,” “right” and “left.”
A few weeks back, the vice president managed to send out seismic ripples after his interview on “The Late Show” with Stephen Colbert. And all the guy did was pour his heart out in the aftermath of losing his son Beau to cancer. The public reaction was so intense it forced other candidates to reconfigure their campaign strategies.
It was the kind of simple honesty and heartfelt candor that all of Donald Trump’s staged bombast lacks. Biden was speaking above and beyond the nonsense of the latest poll numbers. His impassioned remarks even dared to transcend party lines.
Standing beside his boss, Barack Obama, the vice president dared to say, “Republicans are not our enemy.” And he even dared to add that compromise is not a dirty word. Imagine that.
We have endured a summer where Trump proved that the surface sheen of reality TV is, in fact, the perfect training ground for a presidential run — at least in the Republican party.
To be sure, Joe Biden was fiercely partisan yesterday, but he was also fiercely grounded in the kind of searing emotional truth that goes well beyond obvious political calculations. Joe wasn’t spearing the Republican opposition, but rather trying to convey a higher political truth as he understood it.
“I believe we have to end the divisive partisan politics that is ripping this country apart,” Biden said, “and I think we can. It’s mean-spirited. It’s petty. And it’s gone on for much too long.”
Even as Joe Biden was saying this, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was letting his crazy Republican brethren know that he would only consent to become their speaker if he has the backing of the “Say No” faction of his party.
Not surprisingly, the most endearing quality Biden displayed was loyalty — to his boss, to his party and to his son.
Compare that to the long knives we’ve seen Donald Trump use on fellow Republicans Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul. It’s kill or be killed.
Joe Biden has gracefully exited the presidential stage. We can only hope he did not take all the class of the field with him. Sadly, I’m not so sure.