Joe Biden absolutely nailed it

Take that, haters.

After he finished his State of the Union address on Thursday night, President Joe Biden waded into the crowd of Democratic elected officials who wanted to glad-hand with him.

He was almost immediately greeted by longtime New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, who told Biden proudly: “Nobody’s gonna talk about cognitive impairment now.”

To which the president responded jokingly: “I kinda wish sometimes I was cognitively impaired.”

Which pretty nicely sums up the night!

Look: This was a critically important speech for Joe Biden’s 2024 chances. The storyline going into the speech — among a majority of the electorate — was that he is too old to be president. Many people wondered about whether he was even capable of delivering a lengthy speech like the SOTU given his advanced age.

If Biden looked tired or flubbed a bunch of lines or just generally didn’t seem up to the task, the talk of him stepping aside or heading for a loss at the hands of Donald Trump in November would have been turned up to 11.

So the stakes were high. VERY high.

And, candidly, Biden met them — and then some.

There is NO way that anyone who watched that speech would come away with the impression that Biden was anything under than — to borrow a phrase — fired up and ready to go.

He was forceful. He was in command. He went back and forth — off script — with Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Greene who jeered at him from the crowd.

Here’s a sign of how un-old Biden seemed: The most common pushback from Republicans after the speech was that Biden must have been on, um, something to perk him up. Yes, really!

“We saw a very different Joe Biden tonight,” admitted Fox News host Sean Hannity. “Very angry, very jacked up you might say. Maybe, charitably, over-caffeinated might be a way to put it.”

Like, really? If that’s your best line of argument then you are losing the argument.

But, it wasn’t just how Biden looked and sounded that I thought won the night for him. His decision to confront the age issue head-on was strategically smart — and effective.

Toward the end of his address, Biden said this:

I know I may not look like it, but I’ve been around awhile. When you get to my age, certain things become clearer than ever before.

I know the American story. Again and again I’ve seen the contest between competing forces in the battle for the soul of our nation. Between those who want to pull America back to the past and those who want to move America into the future.

This is, my words not Biden’s, the wisdom argument. In short: Yes, I’m old. That won’t change. But my age is a GOOD thing not a bad thing because I’ve seen a whole hell of a lot.

He expanded on that idea here:

In my career I’ve been told I was too young. By the way, they didn’t let me on the Senate elevator for votes sometimes, not a joke. And I’ve been told I am too old. Whether young or old, I’ve always been known — I’ve always known what endures. I’ve known our North Star.

The very idea of America is that we are all created equal, deserves to be treated equally throughout our lives. We’ve never fully lived up to that idea, but we’ve never walked away from it either.

That is a terrific piece of rhetoric — again framing Biden’s long life in politics as a strength not a weakness.

And then there was this, which to my mind was his best moment of the night:

My fellow Americans, the issue facing our nation isn’t how old we are, it’s how old are our ideas.

Hate, anger, revenge, retribution are the oldest of ideas. But you can’t lead America with ancient ideas that only take us back.

To lead America, the land of possibilities, you need a vision for the future and what can and should be done. Tonight you’ve heard mine.

THIS is how Biden can beat Trump. That no matter how old Biden (or Trump) is, the really important thing is their ideas — and what they would do to the American people and the ideals we have long held.

Look. I don’t think Biden will suddenly leap in front of Donald Trump in the polls after last night. Nor do I think every person (or even most people) who had doubts about Biden’s age will suddenly become convinced all is well.

Those concerns are real and deep. And, one good night isn’t going to fix everything for Biden.

But, man, it’s hard to see what else Biden could have done with his SOTU speech to address the concerns in the electorate (and the Democratic establishment) about his age and ability to perform when the stakes are highest.

If you want even more analysis of the speech, check out the watch party I held over at my YouTube channel last night. We watched the speech together — and chatted about it!