There has been no shortage of commentary on President Biden's recent Ukraine/Israel funding appeal, delivered as a prime-time address from the Oval Office. The speech had an oddly slapped together feel, and it has been subsequently acknowledged that large portions of the speech had been composed prior to the events of October 7th as an appeal for aid to Ukraine. Such an appeal may have its merits, but in light of recent events, the emphasis should have been more tightly focused on Israel's current plight. More importantly, where one might have expected strength and clarity from a President facing two simultaneous wars, one instead got mostly vague assertions, pandering moral equivalences, and tired clichés.

We will not seek to recap the substance of Biden's address, of which there was ultimately little, but rather to point out some aspects that were especially disappointing. Perhaps most disappointing was the President's failure to unequivocally and forcefully place Iran on notice and to warn of specific, tangible consequences should its leadership intensify its proxy war against Israel. This is especially regrettable since the closest thing to any such warning so far coming from the President has been a series of huffed out, wholly unelaborated "don'ts" issued with all the conviction and authority one might exercise when plaintively seeking to shoo the family dog off the couch. One never knows what back-channel communications may be taking place, of course, but the failure to put Iran on notice publicly cannot be seen as anything other than a missed opportunity, at best.

The emergence of anti-Semitism as a cause célèbre of the university set and the embrace of Hamas propaganda by many in the media and by the progressive "Squad" in the House deserves public condemnation, but the President chose not to go there. Instead, he lamented Islamophobia as a social menace equal to anti-Semitism and bent over backwards to disassociate the Palestinian people from Hamas. Most revolting, Biden cited the recent murder of a Palestinian-American child in Illinois as though this were a reflection of American public sentiment and represents an American failing for which the whole nation should be ashamed.

Let us be so bold as to suggest: no one supports the brutal murder of a six-year-old child under any circumstances, and, more to the point, no one needs to be coaxed into that position via the bully pulpit. To exploit a horrific isolated incident like this in a Presidential address from the oval office to tar the nation as a cauldron of murderous anti-Islamic hate is absolutely disgraceful. This portion of the speech was an insult to the national audience. Biden could have cited the incident and then taken the opportunity to express our sympathies and extend our sincere condolences to the family on the assumption that such sympathies are widely shared, but he instead invoked the incident to defame the nation he leads and, perhaps, to perversely balance the atrocities of October 7th by pointing to a like atrocity, as though to say "see, we're no better." It was disgusting.

In framing these remarks, Biden proclaimed "You know, and here at home, we have to be honest with ourselves. In recent years, too much hate has been given too much oxygen, fueling racism, a rise in antisemitism and Islamicphobia [Islamophobia] right here in America." [White House transcript] Perhaps Biden and his speechwriters should try being honest with themselves for a change instead of lecturing the nation as if they themselves have wholly clean hands when it comes to the promotion of hate. Perhaps Biden should ponder the value of lowering the national temperature the next time he and his spokespeople accuse MAGA republicans of being fascists or the next time they and their shills traffic in wild accusations of "White supremacy" against their political opponents. As of this writing, members of the "Squad" continue to promulgate the debunked lie that Israel targeted a hospital and killed 500 people even as their activist followers gather en masse and chant "Gas the Jews!"

And let us never forget the racial rage riots of 2020 -- the riots that the Democratic Party's acolytes assured us were "mostly peaceful" even as prominent Democrats like Kamala Harris promoted contributions to funds set up to bail out the rioters. Neither the President nor any prominent member of his party is in any position to feign moral superiority vis-a-vis the vast majority of Americans, about whom they seem incapable of assuming anything but the worst. The address's implicit moral scolding of the American people was grating and inappropriate given the horrific events that prompted its delivery.

Image: JoshBerglund19