Opinion | A Tale of Two Speeches in Biden’s State of the Union – By Jeff Greenfield (Politico) / March 1, 2022
The president was on the offensive when vowing to confront Putin — and on the backfoot when touting his domestic agenda.
The Joe Biden who began his first State of the Union speech Tuesday night was someone we have not seen very much of: a passionate, strong-voiced speaker, seeking a united, free world and hailing his administration’s response to Vladimir Putin’s aggression.
“I spent countless hours unifying our European allies,” the president noted. “We shared with the world in advance what we knew Putin was planning and precisely how he would try to falsely justify his aggression.”
And while Biden’s adversaries will gleefully note his unintentional substitution of “Iranian” for “Ukrainian” people, his most notable ad lib came after he skewered Putin, saying, “We countered Russia’s lies with truth and now that he has acted, the free world is holding him accountable.”
And as the chamber cheered, Biden added: “He has no idea what’s coming.”
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