“My season of service is nearing its close. This was a hard truth to face. But it is the natural course of things — as evident as the progression from spring to summer, from fall to winter. This is why I have decided to withdraw from the campaign for president of the United States.”
Those are lines written and published by the Washington Post Editorial Board late last night in a piece titled “What If Biden Spoke These Words?” It imagines for the current president — in case he cannot for himself — a graceful way to bow out of the current presidential campaign in the guise of a patriotic Independence Day speech.
The Post editorial comes on the heels of a New York Times Editorial Board piece published late Friday headlined, “To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race.” The NYT piece states bluntly, “The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant…(T)he greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election.”
On Saturday, New Yorker editor David Reminck wrote, “It is not just the political class or the commentariat who were unnerved by the debate. Most people with eyes to see were unnerved. At this point, for the Bidens to insist on defying biology, to think that a decent performance at one rally or speech can offset the indelible images of Thursday night, is folly.”
The subhed of that piece reads bluntly, “For the President to insist on remaining the Democratic candidate would be an act of not only self-delusion but of national endangerment.”
Even more biting is the newest cover of The Economist, which contains only an image of a walker emblazoned with the presidential seal. The cover copy reads, “No Way to Run a Country.”