Mirrors upon mirrors: This is what American presidents do

This post is a bookend to one I did on Feb. 27, 2022—The Comic and the Kleptocrat—when it wasn’t clear that Zelenskyy would be alive the next day. Almost a year later, today, on Feb. 20, 2023, he welcomed Joe Biden to Ukraine.

Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times

Joe is set to give a speech tomorrow. I hope he says what I was hoping he’d say from a microphone in Kyiv: “Mr. Putin, end this war. And you would be wise to do it soon.”

Truth is, I’m hoping for something with the staying power of: “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.”

And the reason for optimism in the outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war resounds from the words of Sebastian Junger.

Sebastian Junger (Photo by Lauren Gerson).

And so the talk for the next little while will be how this might affect Joe’s reelection chances, as that is the pundits’ job. But ultimately, at some point in the near future, I’m hoping to hear something else from Joe Biden: “I do not intend to run for reelection. While I have the highest regard for Kamala Harris, and would endorse her if she ran, I will leave it to the party to come up with a slate of candidates for the 2024 primaries.”

After Mrs. Pelosi’s seamless handoff of power in the House, Biden’s handoff to a younger presidential candidate would seem equally perfect.

What is front and center right now, however is Joe’s ego. Has he reached that tipping point where a man is tempted to say, “Only I can fix it”?

Speaking of perfect, I can’t leave this little exposition without pointing out the obvious echoes to the perfect phone call that led to Trump’s first impeachment. The man that Trump extorted meeting with the man that Trump was trying to undermine. And the mirrors of history keep reflecting. Back and forth. Ad infinitum.