President Joe Biden went before the Congress March 7 to rouse the nation. He succeeded. I had told my wife earlier I did not expect to watch all of it. In years past so many SOTU speeches by Presidents of both parties had devolved into tedious laundry lists of legislative agenda. Not this one! The President enthusiastically took command of everyone’s attention; he kept it for a solid hour. Biden declared: “…my purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment…. Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault at home as they are today. What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas at the very same time.”
The President started abroad with Ukraine: “Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march… If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not. …Ukraine can stop Putin, if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons they need to defend itself. That is all—that Ukraine is asking. ...But now, assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership.” Speaker Mike Johnson shifted uneasily in his chair at that one.
Biden energetically gave as good as he got. He said: “Now, …my predecessor, a former Republican president, tells Putin, quote, do whatever the hell you want. …I think it’s outrageous, it’s dangerous, and it’s unacceptable.”
The President then welcomed the Prime Minister of Sweden to the chamber by stating: “Mr. Prime Minister, welcome to NATO, the strongest military alliance the world has ever seen.” (By contrast Mr. Trump’s former National Security Advisor, John Bolton, recently warned in Politico Mr. Trump intends to blow up NATO).
Then the President addressed Putin directly. He said: “We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down. …History is watching.” The room erupted into a standing ovation.
Biden went on next to the threat to democracy at home: “…History watched three years ago on Jan. 6 when insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger to the throat of American democracy. …The insurrectionists were not patriots. They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power, to overturn the will of the people. Jan. 6 lies about the 2020 election, and the plots to steal the election, posed a great, gravest threat to U.S. democracy since the Civil War. But they failed. America stood. America stood strong and democracy prevailed. …The threat to democracy must be defended. My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about Jan. 6. I will not do that.”
He then said: “This is a moment to speak the truth and bury the lies. Here’s the simple truth: You can’t love your country only when you win.”
The President then went on to address the threats to individual liberties. The President introduced to the chamber Kate Cox, the wife and mother from Dallas who had to leave Texas to get an abortion denied her there to save her life. The President said: “Many of you in this chamber and my predecessor are promising to pass a national ban on reproductive freedom. My God, what freedom else would you take away?”
The President articulated the core values that make America: “Honesty, decency, dignity, equality. To respect everyone. To give everyone a fair shot. To give hate no safe harbor.” Drawing a contrast to his opponent, he stated: “Now other people my age see it differently. The American story of resentment, revenge and retribution—that’s not me.”
Following the President’s speech from the Congress, GOP Alabama freshman Senator Katie Britt gave the GOP response from her kitchen. What were her GOP mentors thinking? That making her out to be a Stepford Wife would appeal to women voters? Instead, women who clearly resented the GOP sticking a woman Senator in her kitchen took to X, TikTok and SNL. They dressed in green shirts and wore crosses to look like Katie, mocking her breathless affectations relentlessly.
More disastrously, her GOP response was dishonest. Britt attacked President Biden by saying she had personally spoken to a victim of sex trafficking who at age 12 was raped on the border. It turns out the rape of the woman, a Mexican, Karla Romero, took place in Mexico, not the US, and over 16 years ago (while Britt was still in her 20’s, not a Senator). It was during the term of George W. Bush between 2004 and 2008, not Biden’s. Romero was never trafficked across the border. She had never sought asylum in the US. (NYT March 9: “Britt Tells Misleading Border Story”). A friend I grew up with in Jackson, Stuart Stevens, the former chief strategist to Mitt Romney, coined a phrase with the title of his book about his old party applicable here: “It Was All a Lie.” It was instead a tale of inspired demagoguery one could only expect from a party recreated by Donald Trump in own image.
Most egregiously, Britt in her Senate committee had helped negotiate the strong bipartisan Senate border bill but then voted against it because Trump told her to. The respectable, at times elegant GOP of Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes is dead, dead, and dead. The party I had once voted for in presidential elections for 20 years before 2016, is gone. The MAGA cult of a dishonorable extremist (did I mention his first trial starts March 25 on multiple felony counts?), is all that is left. It is against that backdrop President Biden, in dignity, wisdom, experience, and with exuberance came forth to give the nation hope in the strongest speech of his long storied life.
Robert P. Wise is a Northsider.
