STEVE SEBELIUS: The election is over: Now it’s time to govern
I won’t ever forget the first time I met Joe Biden.
It was back in 2007, and the Delaware senator was contemplating his second bid for the presidency. One of Biden’s former press aides who’d worked for a Nevada congressional candidate set up a meeting at a Strip hotel, where Biden was attending a fundraiser.
I figured it would be a brief meet-and-greet, a quick exchange of hellos and handshakes and then on to the next thing. I was so convinced it would be a brief meeting, that I brought my wife along, so we could eat dinner afterward.
The meeting, of course, lasted for two and a half hours, with me peppering Biden with questions and him supplying a never-ending stream of anecdotes from his long Senate career. Biden had an amazing recall, recounting his meeting with Moammar Gadhafi in the deserts of Libya or of crossing rhetorical swords with Ronald Reagan over a bill in the Oval Office.
Biden’s political skill was on full display in another way, too: After my wife tried to excuse herself, he insisted she stay and engaged her in the long conversation, although she later confessed she was scared the entire time that he’d ask her a question about foreign policy and she wouldn’t know the answer.
During that meeting — and in several subsequent interviews — I came to learn a bit about Biden, especially this: The man you see on TV or on the campaign trail is the same man you see in a private conversation. He’s engaging, a born Irish storyteller, a person who genuinely cares about the people he’s talking to, whether reporters or regular folk.
Biden lost that race for president in 2008 and passed on a run in 2016. But his inauguration on Wednesday may mark one of the fulcrum points in history where the exact right person at the exact right time finds himself in the exact right place to do what needs to be done.
In his inaugural address, Biden seemed to recognize that fact.
“Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. And I ask every American to join me in this cause,” he said.
The cynical will believe it’s a meaningless, throwaway phrase that all incoming presidents say but none ever mean.
But with Biden, they may have just met their match. “I know speaking of unity can sound to some like a foolish fantasy these days. I know that the forces that divide us are deep and real,” he said. “We can see each other, not as adversaries, but as neighbors. We can treat each other with dignity and respect. We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity, there is no peace, only bitterness and fury.”
For some in politics, weaned on the idea that government is a zero-sum game, that may be the natural state of things. But we’ve seen how that ends: in chaos, battery and bloodshed.
Biden offers at least a chance of another path: “Politics doesn’t have to be a raging fire, destroying everything in its path. Every disagreement doesn’t have to be a cause for total war,” he said.
When President Donald Trump was inaugurated four years ago, I wrote that Americans should support him: “But patriots cheer for the success of their country, regardless of the political affiliation of its president, or whether they supported him with their vote. Patriots find ways to make sure America succeeds, even if they must compromise with leaders of a different party. Patriots don’t consider what their opponents might do were the situation reversed.”
That’s just as true now as it was then and is as important for Trump voters as it is for Biden’s supporters. The new president knows this: “To all of those who did not support us, let me say this: Hear me out as we move forward. Take a measure of me, and my heart. If you still disagree, so be it. That’s democracy. That’s America.”
Not everyone will be convinced. Many never will. But speaking as someone who has heard Biden out more than once, his pledge to be a president for all Americans does not ring hollow. Like Trump four years ago, the country owes it to its new president to at least give him a chance.
Contact Steve Sebelius at SSebelius@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0253. Follow @SteveSebelius on Twitter.