The railfan in the White House is a Democrat from Delaware, not a rail splitter from Illinois.
The difference between the two is profound and intractable, as Joe Biden is aged but unwise, while Abraham Lincoln belongs to the ages.
Because Biden has eyes but no vision, he has no right to captain the ship of state.
Better for him to do away with the metaphor altogether and relinquish command of the Resolute desk, as he would just as soon tear it apart and turn the timbers into railroad ties.
Best for us to contain this train wreck of a presidency, which stretches from derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, to death on the eastern front of the war with Russia, so we may drink from the Ohio without choking or drowning; so the streams that run to and through East Palestine may flow free of chemical runoff; so the waters may return to their place and the air may carry the voice of life rather than the vapors of death; so the dead may rest in peace and the living may know peace, free of the poison overhead; so none may have to go over there—to the borderland of Ukraine—where the tyranny of geography goes on forever.
Biden is blind to these things, not because he is old but because is obtuse.
When he was a child, the greatest Briton spoke about the might of the greatest weapon in the world.
When he was a man, a great statesman spoke about the fate of a great nation.
Now Biden is the same age Winston Churchill was when he spoke to the House of Commons about the hydrogen bomb.
Biden is also the same age Richard Nixon was when he spoke to America about the fate of Russia.
Could Biden speak like either man, or speak as long and as well without notes, reaffirming his belief in peace through strength or atoms for peace?
Could he explain the melancholy paradox of mutual peace through mutual terror, or the danger of overconfidence in war and no confidence in spite of a just and lasting peace?
Could is the key word, because the idea that Biden can expound on the consciousness of a common purpose or express the purpose of a specific policy is the gospel of cant.
Take Biden at his word, with the understanding that he is without judgment and understanding, when he says he can define America in one word: possibilities.
The word, according to Biden’s remarks at a reception for the Democratic National Committee, comes from his meeting with Xi Jinping in the Tibetan Plateau.
No doubt Xi agrees, for possibilities abound regarding China’s enslavement of Tibet.
The Sinicization of Tibetan culture and the repression of Tibetan life, from the obliteration of the unborn to the murder of newborns, to the policing of the mind to prohibitions on life in the spirit—nothing is impossible.
Life is both the promise of America and the precedent for the establishment of the United States of America, from which all other rights follow.
Life is liberty, with justice for all, where each shall sit in safety and there shall be none to make him afraid.
Life is the opportunity to make real the words that define America, for which Joe Biden has nothing to add and much to detract.
—Follow Bill Asher on Twitter: @BillAsher18