It was the Best of Biden, It was the Worst of Biden

As President Biden’s final days in public service wind down, his legislative accomplishments and the stumbles of his presidency are laid bare

The release of the first volume of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s report provides a jarring reminder that less than a week from today we will witness the inauguration of the man (a convicted felon on 34 counts on a separate election interference and business records falsification matter) who sought to overturn an election. The report may not contain many new data points but it underscores one of the worst failures of the Biden presidency – the inability to secure the conviction of Donald Trump, which in turn allows his return to power.

Refusing to launch a prompt investigation against the insurrectionist leader (insisting instead on working “from the bottom up” by prosecuting rioters), Attorney General Merrick Garland made it possible for Trump, in cahoots with the U.S. Supreme Court, to run out the clock. Smith’s report confirms he believes there was sufficient evidence to indict Trump, had his election not made it impossible for prosecution to continue. What Smith lacked was not facts nor sufficient legal tools but time.

As of this writing we also have not seen the second volume of Smith’s report relating to his absconding with top secret documents at the end of the first term. We not only will never see Trump prosecuted for his alleged crimes; we may never learn the full story. Again, responsibility lies with Biden’s Attorney General. To speed up the Mar-a-Lago report, Garland could have bypassed sharing the report in advance with Trump; he could have dismissed the case against the other two defendants (removing any argument that they would be prejudiced). Now, we may never see it, nor learn about any role that nominees such as Kash Patel might have played.

Garland’s obsession with procedural niceties at the expense of basic principles of equal justice has rendered him among the worst (certainly the most foolish) attorneys general. And yet, we would be wrong to lay the blame exclusively on Garland. Biden knew what sort of attorney general he was getting, fantasized that Garland would be above “reproach,” then declined to replace him once he proved inept. Failure to prosecute Trump—or even get out the full story of Trump’s alleged crimes—is Biden’s doing.

If the denouement of Smith’s investigation represents a low point in the Biden presidency, heading into the last days of his presidency and his time in public office, we have also seen him display some of his strongest qualities. At Jimmy Carter’s funeral—where cameras captured frosty interchanges, awkward body language, and dirty looks among the current and past first and second families—Biden took one more opportunity to skewer his successor. He came to praise Carter but by implication to condemn Carter’s moral opposite, Donald Trump.

“Character. Character. Character,” Biden said of Carter. Clearly, he did so to remind us that Trump has None. None. None. Similarly, it was impossible to hear Biden’s admonition (“[C]haracter.. is destiny. Destiny in our lives and quite frankly, destiny in the life of the nation”) as anything other than a rebuke of the narcissistic bully poised to lead America down a dark path in one week. Trump might have been puzzled by the suggestion that “strength of character is more than title or the power we hold.” Trump simply cannot process the notion that what matters is treating everyone with “dignity, respect.” If Trump had any self-awareness, he would recognize that Biden’s suggestion that “we have an obligation to give hate no safe harbor [and] to stand up to what my dad used to say is the greatest sin of all: the abuse of power” was an indictment pointed directly at him. So, Biden scores for once more defending decency, empathy, and kindness—and for showcasing the nerve to warn us that selecting leaders who lack those qualities has severe consequences.

In recent days, Biden also got his chance to take one more victory lap on the economy. “With today’s report of 256,000 new jobs in December, we have created over 16.6 million jobs over the course of my administration, and this is the only administration in history to have created jobs every single month,” he wrote in a statement last Friday. “Although I inherited the worst economic crisis in decades with unemployment above 6% when I took office, we’ve had the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years with unemployment at 4.1% as I leave.”

One could almost see the thought bubble above his head: “And a lot of good that did me!” He has every reason to feel aggrieved. After he delivered the proverbial economic “soft landing:” an increase in net income; record investment in infrastructure; green energy; and chip manufacturing; the lowest “black-white unemployment gap” in history; and unprecedented controls on prescription drug prices, the White House press corps couldn’t help themselves from pushing back with inane questions (Will he pardon himself?). Political reporters’ refusal to give Biden his due or to debunk public misperception of the economy still sticks in Biden’s craw.

On other fronts, Biden rushed $500M more aid to Ukraine and extended Temporary Protected Status to hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Sudan, Ukraine, El Salvador, and Venezuela. Alas, Ukraine aid will eventually run out unless Trump can be convinced to stand up for democracy, European security, and international law—rather than to do war criminal Vladimir Putin’s bidding. Whatever protection from deportations Biden enacts will run out in 18 months, consigning millions of immigrants to the whims of a president who thinks they “poison the blood” of America. Biden’s failure to address the border early and forcefully in his administration may have been his worst policy and political failure.

Unfortunately, in the final days of Biden’s presidency we are also witnessing his faults and frailty. He insists he could have won the election—preposterous on its face and grossly insulting to Kamala Harris, who heroically came close to overcoming the burden of running as his vice president. Even worse, Biden told the press corps, “I would have beaten Trump, could have beaten Trump, and I think that Kamala could have beaten Trump and would have beaten Trump…”

Looking and sounding every bit his age, his remarks prompt us again to ponder if Democrats could have won had he announced years ago he would not run for reelection, thereby allowing a full primary and the benefit of time for the nominee.

Biden’s achievements co-exist alongside his faults. His domestic and foreign policy accomplishments rival any modern presidency. And yet ego and self-delusion delivered the presidency to Trump. Sadly, credit to him for rescuing the country from Trump’s clutches is now undercut by his part in enabling Trump’s return. Ironically, Biden’s legacy will depend in part on whether democracy survives another four years of Trump.