A speech that may well define Biden’s presidency.
The significance of President Joe Biden’s Oval Office address to the nation last night was signaled in the opening sentence: “We’re facing an inflection point in history.”
What followed was a speech that may well define Biden’s presidency.
The proximate cause for the speech was Biden’s desire to urge Americans to stand with Israel in its war with Hamas and Ukraine in its war with Russia. The president is expected to ask Congress for emergency assistance to the two nations in a $100 billion spending package. But the speech was not primarily about money; it was about America’s teleology, about how Biden sees the role of the United States in a world that is fraying and aflame.
Biden used phrases loaded with meaning. America is “the arsenal of democracy,” he said, invoking a phrase from a 1940 speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt. But in case that wasn’t clear enough, Biden said America is “the essential nation” and the “indispensable nation.” It “holds the world together,” Biden said. Israel and Ukraine are 1,200 miles apart.
