Biden’s Swan Song

Playbook: “What we found notable about President Joe Biden’s Oval Office address last night was that he never explained why he’s not running for reelection. While he said he was stepping aside “to unite my party,” he did not say that he believes he’s too old to run, or that he’s unable to take on a campaign because of any physical or mental limitations, or that he believes he could not defeat Donald Trump.”

“In other words, he did not concede any of the arguments Democratic leaders made to push him out of the race. Perhaps he thought those issues about his age and the bad polls were implicit, but it also suggests that he never came around to those views and only stepped aside because, in the face of the party revolt, he had to.”

The New York Times called it “the beginning of Biden’s long goodbye.”