President Biden had a tough time articulating part of his speech during the Governors Ball Dinner, a black-tie affair at the White House over the weekend.
The 81-year-old president addressed a gathering of state leaders Saturday while reading from his notes as he stood before a portrait of President Abraham Lincoln, adding a symbolic backdrop to his message about unity.
The fumbling moment occurred as Mr. Biden referenced a quote from Lincoln regarding a divided nation.
“And, you know, standing here in front of this portrait of the man behind me here, he — he said — and I want to make sure I get the quote exactly right. He said, ‘We — the better angels’ — he said, ‘We must address the counsel — and adjust the better angels of our nature,” Mr. Biden blathered.
“And we do the — and we do well to remember what else he said. He said, ‘We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends.’ This is in the middle of — this is in the — in the part of the Civil War. He said, ‘We’re not enemies, but [we’re] friends. We must not be enemies.”
Aside from the bumbling, Mr. Biden got history wrong. Lincoln delivered his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, and the war began the next month — not in the middle of the war, as Mr. Biden started to declare.
After botching the reading, Mr. Biden said: “Folks — and I’ve been around. I know I don’t look it. I’ve been around a long while, though. And — and I mean this sincerely — we’ve gotten — politics has gotten too bitter — Democrats and Republicans. Politics has gotten too personally — and it just is — it’s just not like it was.”
The president presumably meant to be reciting one of the most famous quotations from Lincoln’s first inaugural: “I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection.
“The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll indicates that a significant portion of American voters harbors concerns about the age of potential presidential candidates for the 2024 election, with 86% saying Mr. Biden shouldn’t run for another term due to his age.
The concerns about age are not limited to the current president. Former President Donald Trump, 77, is also considered by 62% of poll respondents to be too old for another term in the Oval Office.
The Biden figure is especially salient, given that the Justice Department has made public a report commenting on the president’s cognitive abilities. Without directly linking these to his qualifications for the presidency, the report remarks on his “poor memory” and “diminished facilities.” Consequently, the DOJ didn’t recommend charges in a classified documents case.
• Washington Times Staff can be reached at 202-636-3000.