OPINION: Dr. Biden... uh oh
Government Is Not a Rewards Program
Hmmm…
All that I know about Dr. Jill Biden is that she’s a teacher, the former First Lady, and that she kept her job while her husband was the President. Nothing negative at all. I never paid any attention to what she did, said, or wore while she lived in the White House. And the only reason I’m bringing her up today is that I watched a clip of her interview because the title caught my attention.
Her remarks, which you can watch below, took place on June 3rd in Washington, DC, and were covered by C-SPAN. She was interviewed as part of her press tour for her book, View from the East Wing. I would never have searched it out, but YouTube was right when it guessed I’d be interested in seeing something labeled “Jill Biden on Walking Out of Room when Kamala Harris Wanted Endorsement.” I was terribly frustrated with how that whole thing unfolded. He decided to run for a second term even though he promised he wouldn’t? Then he steps aside way too late, leaving no real opportunity for a primary for us citizens to choose to have Vice President Harris as our candidate? Finally, I’d have the chance to learn what was going through the President’s wife’s mind throughout that debacle.
You know why she was upset in that moment? Why she had to walk out of the room? Because her husband had served this country for 50 years and deserved better than to finally be asked to step aside. In essence, how dare we, the voting public, question his competence to serve as the President of the United States, leading him to drop out of the race? Oh boy. It was then that my opinion of her started to form.
If the reason her husband sought the highest office was that he felt he deserved it after years in government, then he went into it for the wrong reason.
Entitlement is bad anywhere, but especially in public service. Our system of government allows ordinary citizens to step out of their private lives and devote themselves to the well-being of their neighbors. No one is owed a position, another term, or a promotion to higher office simply because they’ve been around for a long time. Public office exists to serve the public, not the people who hold it. That’s why Dr. Biden’s position that decades of service somehow create a claim on the future isn’t acceptable.
The purpose of public service is not recognition or legacy. The reward should be knowing that families are doing better, schools are stronger, streets are safer, and opportunities are greater than they were before. If you want recognition for your accomplishments, then choose a different career.
So, what can and should we take away from this?
Well, if you’re currently an elected official, make sure you’re doing the job to serve. If you’re not, self-correct. For the rest of us, we can’t choose leaders because they believe they deserve power. We choose them because we trust them to use it wisely and for the common good. The moment a candidate starts acting entitled to hold an office, we MUST ask both them and ourselves whether they’ve forgotten who that office actually belongs to: the people.
President Biden was not ruining our country as his term came to an end. If he had been able to serve a second term the same way he served his first, I don’t think America would have crumbled. But that’s not inspiring. We deserve a champion, someone truly up to the task of using America’s strengths to address its weaknesses and help the country reach its full potential. As the Trump campaign ratcheted up, Dr. Biden simply needed to step outside herself and ask, “What is best for this country? My husband is getting older. The people are starting to see him as feeble. They do not believe he’s effectively countering Donald Trump and the misguided MAGA movement. So what do we honestly do to protect this country? Is Joe really the only person out of 340-plus million Americans capable of doing the job?”
What a lesson.
Respectfully,
