Will Joe Biden be remembered as "another Harry Truman?"
It isn't too soon to consider Joe Biden's place in history.
In today's Guest Post Jack Mullen shares a reflection on Joe Biden, Abraham Lincoln, and that less-remembered president, Harry Truman. We assume that Lincoln had always been revered, a towering figure in American consciousness. Mullen writes that this is incorrect. It took a generation for Americans to appreciate Lincoln as a great president, not just one so controversial that half the country broke away at the prospect of him taking office. Greatness never came to Truman. Truman settled into our consciousness as a modest, low-profile president. He is remembered as a continuation of the path set by FDR. He is remembered as a successor, not an initiator.
Truman didn't cash in on having been president. He refused lucrative board positions, saying his former office belonged to the people, not to him personally. It seems quaint now--and honorable. His seven years in office don't make a big statement. President Eisenhower came later and left a freeway system as a permanent monument. JFK's Cuban Missile Crisis came later, too. Truman was in-between.
Jack Mullen grew up in Medford. He thinned pears alongside me in the Naumes orchards in the mid-1960s before going off to the University of Oregon and the Peace Corps. He now follows politics from his home in Washington, D.C. Mullen notes that Biden's record of legislative accomplishments, achieved without the robust majorities that are normally necessary, deserve much more recognition.
Guest Post by Jack Mullen
These days, no one is being pushed deeper into the dustbin of history than Joseph R. Biden.
Biden’s legislative accomplishments during the first two years of presidency compare favorably with Franklin Roosevelt’s first term. Granted, as with Roosevelt, Biden followed a weak predecessor. Presidents Trump and Hoover both eschewed the legislative recipe to address the country’s current ills. Even with the complications and impediments of Joe Manchin and Kristen Sinema, Biden sailed through the legislative gauntlet much like a Franklin Roosevelt and a Lyndon Johnson.
Roosevelt was a young, brash fresh face that easily connected with the electorate. Other young Presidents, Kennedy and Obama also found a strong connection with the electorate. Neither Kennedy’s nor Obama’s legislative records compare to Biden’s. Why is Biden not given his due? Is it his age? Or is it, as with Lincoln and Truman, that sometimes history takes a long time to shine notice and appreciate presidential accomplishments?
The revered Abe Lincoln of Carl Sandberg and Jon Meacham did not exist in the latter part of the 19th Century. Lincoln was still hated in the South, but his two trusted secretaries, John Nicolay and John Hay, endeavored to give Americans a true appreciation of Lincoln. Nicolay and Hay spent two full years in the 1880s writing a ten-volume book on Lincoln from personal memory and painstaking research. Once Robert Lincoln's 1897 50-year moratorium on the release his father's papers expired in 1947, the Abraham Lincoln Association in Springfield, Illinois sprang into action. The eight-volume "Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln," along with the work of Nicolay and Hay, provided fodder for thousands of books written about the nation's 16th President. With President’s Day just around the corner, another Lincoln book, Abraham Lincoln His Speeches and Writings, is available for sale as a one-volume paperback.Harry Truman is under-appreciated. The Truman charm, if any, is being the first president connecting with people as a likable rascal. “The Buck Stops Here” presidency benefited from an unusually strong cast of advisors. George Marshall, Dean Acheson, and a young Clark Clifford laid the groundwork for America’s post-war leadership that, for all its blemishes and setbacks, is in place 75 years later.
As Truman’s popularity waned, he did not seek reelection in 1952. After he left office McCarthyism grew and stained the country here at home. Overseas, American hubris led to the overthrow of elected governments--yes, democratically elected governments--in Iran in 1953 and Guatemala in 1954. These took place during Eisenhower's presidency and the height of the McCarthy era. The blowback from those two operations sting to this day. One’s mind can only speculate the effect a Truman reelection in 1952 might have had on the nation, much as one can speculate how different Lincoln's approach on Reconstruction would have been from Andrew Johnson’s.
Does Joe Biden embody the old adage that with age comes wisdom? Is wisdom even sought in today’s political environment? This era values stage presence, charisma, and entertainment value--not Biden's strong points.
In two short years Joe Biden tapped into the wisdom of three Presidents: Lincoln on saving democracy; FDR on rebuilding America; and Truman in laying the groundwork for America’s role in the modern world. Of course, one can criticize Lincoln, FDR, and Truman. Joe Biden is an easy target with his age, his son Hunter, and now the classified documents fiasco. Maybe Joe Biden will be tossed unceremoniously into the dustbin of history. He is boring compared to Trump. He might later be understood as a brief intermediate figure between two blockbuster-high-drama presidents. Or, maybe, more is in store for the Joe Biden story. As of the moment, he is still in the game, and I, for one, appreciate him.
I share this appreciation of Joe Biden’s first two years in office. He deserves more credit than he has mostly received. I am puzzled by his lack of greater popularity. It does not speak well of our current political culture.