Biden, Round One
Knowledge is not just “power,” knowledge saves lives.
March 11, a day the White House celebrated.
The Renaissance Presidential road trip begins Monday, March 14. Biden’s purpose: to communicate to Americans what the recently signed-into-law 1.9 Trillion Dollar Stimulus Package means for America. There will be no “big” rallies attended by the mask-less. Instead there will be small meetings with attendees wearing masks. First Lady and Second Man will be deployed. Red states and blue states will be destinations.
Tonight, speaking for 24 minutes before a Prime Time TV audience, Biden’s tone was not celebratory. Rather the President’s demeanor was grieving for souls lost. His first prime time address was an exhortation for the nation to come together to fight this “war,” called COVID-19. To remember lives lost, to “tell the truth,” to set “unity” as our goal. Biden compared the number of fatalities from COVID-19 to the number of victims of 2 World Wars, the Viet Nam War and 9/11, not to previous pandemics and other human disasters. Of the spirits he invoked not a past President or a military leader but a war correspondent and ambulance driver:
…and so many of you, as Hemingway wrote, being strong in all the broken places.
The President did something America has not witnessed for 4 years coming from the White House: he connected with the suffering. Only once did the President allude to the previous administration,
A year ago, we were hit with a virus that was met with silence and spread unchecked, denials for days, weeks, then months. That led to more deaths, more infections, more stress and more loneliness.
What an uncommon way to speak to our nation’s suffering on the anniversary of the first pandemic case: ‘we could have known.’
Knowledge is not just “power,” knowledge saves lives.
Mentioned twice during his address is that Johnson and Johnson and Merck are competitors. Both companies have agreed to work together, (‘at my invitation, in my office’), to meet the government’s vaccine distribution goal. So Biden pitched an understated metaphor to Republicans- none of whom voted for the Stimulus Relief package- to heed. The question is, is Congress listening?
“As I have said continuously ‘Don’t count America out… America will come back, stronger.’” Biden could be saying this in front of a mirror: like Hemingway, ‘a writer of our times,’ Biden, ‘a President for our times.’
So the 46th admits in ‘prime time.’
March 11
