The unalterable truth is that second terms, dating back to Franklin Roosevelt and his ill-fated effort to pack the Supreme Court, are invariably sad. The historical list is daunting: Lyndon Johnson (Vietnam), Richard Nixon (Watergate), Ronald Reagan (the Iran-Contra scandal), Bill Clinton (his sexual entanglement with an intern and impeachment), George W. Bush (Hurricane Katrina and the unraveling of Iraq), and Barack Obama (stymied by an obstructionist Republican House and then by McConnell in the Senate over Merrick Garland’s Supreme Court appointment).
Unlike Obama, Clinton, and Reagan, Biden lacks the rhetorical ability to rally the voters when times get tough. As Foer points out, “At this late stage in his career, he had largely stopped giving speeches with cadences and imagery that aspired to be described as Kennedyesque.” But even when the speech texts make allowances for Biden’s limitations and his suppressed stutter, the president can still spoil everything with an undisciplined ad lib.
In March 2022, Biden in Warsaw marred a major speech supporting Ukraine by improvising this line about Vladimir Putin: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power.” After Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, had to issue a statement stressing that America was not seeking regime change in Moscow, Biden (according to Foer) “fumed to his friends about how he was treated like a toddler. Was John Kennedy ever babied like that?”