On each of the four occasions in which Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office, press accounts of his speech described the deployment of that setting as “rare.” Duly so. Like his Democratic predecessor, Biden’s staff rarely missed an opportunity to inform reporters that they saw the Oval as a sacred place that lent profound gravity to the cause for which it was deployed. As such, it should be used sparingly.
Indeed, when the president addressed the nation from that setting, he did so on occasions that could fairly be considered historic. When a congressional compromise averted default on the national debt; when the attacks of October 7 yielded an “inflection point” associated with the opening of a second front in the anti-American axis’s assault on the U.S.-led world order; and when an assassin attempted to take Donald Trump’s life, Biden generally rose to the occasion. But on Wednesday night, the Oval Office served as the backdrop for an address to the nation on nothing weightier than Joe Biden’s career path. Worse, in wallowing in his own self-pity, the president used his perch behind the Resolute Desk to smuggle his defunct campaign’s themes back into the national conversation.
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