Walking into the House chamber, the first thing that strikes you is how small it is.
The room where the president delivers the State of the Union looks cavernous on television, but when you’re standing there, you realize it’s not much bigger than a high school gymnasium with a balcony.
As I watched President Joe Biden, I couldn’t help but be reminded of that fact on Thursday night.
He raced through the speech like he was reading a bedtime story. Talking over the applause lines and stopping only to catch his breath between snappy lines designed to rev up his base.
‘My predecessor,’ this.
‘My predecessor,’ that.
Was this a State of the Union or a campaign speech?
But more than anything else, on Thursday night’s speech showed just how small and feeble Joe Biden is – though not necessarily how you think.
We all know his age is starting to show.
We’re a nation in crisis. The border. The economy. The debt. These are not easy fixes. What we heard from the president on Thursday night was inadequate.
Look back to his debate against Republican Vice Presidential candidate and House Speaker Paul Ryan in 2012 and see for yourself or watch the viral videos of him chasing kids with a squirt gun during vice presidential backyard barbecues.
He’s clearly lost a step. No one with two eyes and an intellectually honest brain can deny that.
That’s why, according to ABC News, 86 percent of respondents believe him to be too old to serve.
86 percent!
In today’s day and age, you can’t get 86 percent of people to come together to say the sky is blue. Yet they’re willing to say he’s too old. That’s telling.
There’s a feebleness there. You can see it clearly Thursday night. Just like you saw it when he gave his impromptu press conference after the release of the Hur Report.
But there’s also a feebleness and a smallness in his policies. That’s just as concerning.
We’re a nation in crisis. The border. The economy. The debt.
These are not easy fixes.
What we heard from the president on Thursday night was inadequate.
He claims he can’t fix immigration. He says he’s helpless without a massive law passing through a narrowly divided Congress.
Just ignore the fact that he was the one revoking executive orders that stemmed the flow of migrants such as the Remain in Mexico policy and the national emergency that allowed for money to build the wall.
When it comes to inflation, he goes after smaller potato chip bags. Seemingly ignorant of the fact that it’s his reckless spending that makes it more expensive to buy everything from everyday groceries to a new home.
This smallness and feebleness extend not just to what he is but what he stands for.
Think about it: what was one innovative, new policy solution he introduced on Thursday night? Something we’ve never heard before?
I can’t think of one.
Protect Obamacare? Old news.
Codify the right to an abortion? Nothing new there either.
Paying one’s ‘fair share?’ That line is older than I am.
It was the same tired policies, from a president who is out of ideas and out of time.
Joe Biden simply doesn’t have the energy or the ideas to meet the moment. His entire presidency is one based on helplessness. He does not shape events, as the leader of the free world should. When the country looks to him for answers, we get half-baked solutions and tired ideas.
That’s a dangerous place to be heading into the general election. Try as he might, he can’t do anything about his age and the toll it’s taken on him. But on Thursday night, he had an opportunity to actually be bigger and bolder than he is. Instead, he was feeble and small – a living embodiment of the policies he presented.
Joe Biden finished his speech and took his time leaving the House chamber. When I turned off the television, I had the very same thought I had when I first walked into that room over a decade ago.
‘Is this it?’