One more selfie for the road. We love you, America. pic.twitter.com/71k46uGADV
— President Biden (@POTUS46Archive) January 20, 2025
I was busy yesterday and while I noted the fact, didn’t have time to comment on Joe Biden spending his last full day as president in South Carolina.
He was in Charleston, and I was up in the northernmost reaches of our state. I took my mother up there for the graveside services for Micah Caskey’s grandmother. Mary Jo and my mother were close friends when they were schoolgirls in Bennettsville, growing up right across Jordan Street from each other. It was a beautiful service, and I was glad the weather gave us a break so we could get up there to our hometown.
So I didn’t focus on Joe’s time in the LowCountry until I read about it in The New York Times this morning:
President Biden spent his final full day in office in South Carolina, a state he credits for helping catapult him to the White House and where he returned in his final hours as president to urge his supporters to stay engaged in the fight for a more just nation.
During visits to a historically Black church and an African American museum, Mr. Biden reflected on his history with a place that he said had played a pivotal role in his life and career and that pushed him in his efforts to restore “the soul of the nation.”…
Yep, we are the state that reversed the crazy trend toward less-suitable candidates for the Democratic nomination, and launched the right choice to the White House. And I’ve never been prouder of South Carolina than I was that night — Feb. 29, 2000. Here I am celebrating with some friends that night…
And here’s Joe that night, on the stage with Jim Clyburn, who had done more than anyone else to spur that victory (yeah, the picture quality is sorry, but it’s grabbed from video of a raucous moment)…
Screenshot
And here they are together yesterday in Charleston. (I’m just linking to it since I don’t own the copyright.)
Back to our subject. Did Joe restore “the soul of the nation?” Well that’s why he had decided to do, after the shame of Charlottesville. Joe had done more for his country, and was more deserving of a peaceful retirement, than anyone I knew. But he stepped forward, and gave his all. I don’t know if we can say he saved the nation’s soul, given the way the nation behaved over this past year. But he certainly resurrected it after its ignominious death in 2016. And for those four more years of life — from 2021 to this day — the United States was again a nation its Founders could take pride in having established.
And I will always be profoundly grateful to him for that. Joe Biden is my hero.
It’s interesting (to me) that he made his appearance yesterday in Charleston, since that’s the place I saw and spoke with him last. That was when he came to campaign with James and the rest of us in October 2018. So while I’m thanking him, I’ll thank him again for that. And close with this picture from that day. I’ve shown it to you before (and it’s always there at the top of my Twitter page), but I’ll always treasure it, so here we go again…
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