On Wednesday, President Joe Biden spoke for 11 minutes from the Oval Office about his decision to withdraw from the 2024 race and his plans for the final few months of his presidency, a.k.a. his lame duck session.
Among many other promises for things Biden intends to accomplish between now and January 20, 2025, was peace in the Middle East – not a minute too soon, if you ask me. And, mind you, he’ll be accomplishing it in a political environment in which no one owes him or expects from him anything, and the best he can hope for is empathy and expressions of gratitude for the stuff he accomplished back when he still remembered names and where he was.
So, here’s the part of the speech Biden devoted to his ambition to turn swords into plowshares in the Holy Land:
I am going to keep working to end the war in Gaza, release the hostages, bring peace and security in the Middle East, and end this war. We are also working round-the-clock to bring home Americans being unjustly detained all around the world.
What else? Oh, the man was on a roll:
He promised a Supreme Court reform “Because this is critical to our democracy.” This is hilarious, considering his attacks on the Netanyahu government a year ago for daring to try and reform its own Supreme Court because, you know, it’s critical to Israel’s democracy.
Wait, there was more: “I will keep calling out hate and extremism, to make it clear there is no please in America for political violence or any violence ever. When we keep speaking out to protect our kids from gun violence, and our planet from climate crisis, this is an existential threat.”
Also: “I’ll keep fighting so we can end cancer as we know it because we can do it,” which the outgoing president followed with the ever-popular: “We finally need to tell big pharma after all of these years to lower the cost of prescription drug for seniors. I’m going to keep fighting to make sure it lowers the cost for everyone, not just seniors.”
Question: if big pharma doesn’t get enormous profits from its research, what’s its incentive to attempt to end cancer? Will Biden divert billions in taxpayers’ money to cancer research? I don’t think so.
You know what? Watch his speech. It’s only 11 minutes, and it’s OK if you tune out here and there, it doesn’t really matter. But this was (hopefully) Biden’s last hurrah. Be part of history:
