Crises Meet a Biden Core Belief

President Biden traces his political and diplomatic history back to Golda Meir and Mikhail Gorbachev. So crises like the wars involving Israel and Ukraine confirm for him the role of the US as the only nation that can help put the world right. The two wars, David Sanger writes in an opinion piece in the New York Times, "have brought out a passion, emotion and a clarity that is usually missing from the president's ordinarily flat and meandering speeches." As Biden responds to questions about his age, Sanger says, "this has been the moment he has trained for his entire political career."

"When presidents get into their sweet spot you usually see and hear it," historian Michael Beschloss said, "and in the past few weeks you have seen and heard it." That doesn't make his task of getting his nation behind him any easier, and it might be more difficult for him to rally support for Israel now than it was to do the same for Ukraine after Russia's invasion, Sanger writes. Biden's address to the nation Thursday night probably will lean on the history of the US defending democracy and preserving the global order, Sanger writes, as well as "make the case that there is no higher cause than protecting free people from invasion and terrorism." The full piece can be found here. (More opinion stories.)