Between 1801 and 1913, the president of the United States sent “information” about the “State of the Union” to Congress by letter, rather than delivering it in person during a speech before a Joint Session. One can only assume that, as his dreams continue to crash down around him, Joe Biden is quietly wishing this admirable tradition had never been abandoned.
What, one wonders, can Biden possibly say about his tenure that will not sound ridiculous or twee? His domestic agenda is in tatters. Voters’ impressions of his party are negative in the extreme. The economy is a mess, with rampant inflation, runaway gas prices, and such chronic consumer under-confidence that Biden’s own vice president has publicly lamented the “malaise.” He’s on the wrong side of the growing public backlash against the over-mitigation of Covid-19. And his John Wayne posturing — “Vladimir Putin doesn’t want me to be President, because I’m the only person in this field who’s ever gone toe-to-toe with him,” he exclaimed in 2019 — has been revealed for the hollow act that it is on the battlefields of Kyiv and Kabul.
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