We Need to Talk about Joe Biden

People are laying into him for being old and sick. This is unconscionable. Worse still: They're forgetting his heroism.

What is an American president? In the conversations about former President Joe Biden, something is getting lost.

An American president is a person elected to serve just four years in a highly constrained position of leadership over the richest and most powerful nation in the world, during which he or she gets to take a crack at solving the problems that have bedeviled human societies forever.

Put simply, the American president has four years to pursue answers to these questions: How can our liberal democracy best protect people, care for them, educate them, and help them prosper?

Things an American president is not supposed to do: seize power for himself, loot the American people, crush his personal enemies. Things he is not supposed to be: a dictator, a king, or a celebrity.