Washington
Joe Biden is no George Washington, and Valley Forge proved it
“This is like something out of a fairy tale, a bad fairy tale.”
That line, from the speech of President Joe Biden at Valley Forge this week, may have been the most accurate observation in the entire address kicking off Biden’s 2024 campaign.
The speech was a masterpiece of contradiction. Biden started by denouncing how Donald Trump’s campaign is only “about him” and “obsessed with the past.” He then spent virtually all of the speech obsessing about Trump and January 6, 2021.
It was an early indication of the Orwellian character of the speech. Facing the lowest polling numbers of any modern president, Biden attempted a constructive substitution. “Democracy is on the ballot,” he said. So voters do not have to vote for him. When they see Biden, they should just read “democracy.”
That will require more than an act of substitution in the voting booth. It would require an act of willful blindness.
Biden spoke of how Democrats are fighting to protect the “right to vote.” Democratic activists and officials across the country are seeking to remove Trump from the ballot even though he is the most popular choice for the presidency right now.
In fact, dozens of Democratic officials have sought to remove 126 Republicans from Congress on the same basis. Even as Biden was telling citizens to vote Democrat to preserve democracy, a Democratic activist was seeking to remove a GOP congressman from the ballot in a nearby Pennsylvania district.
Biden’s speech would be more credible if he had joined principled Democratic politicians who have denounced this nationwide effort. As usual, he has remained silent as he did on Court packing in the last election.
It would also have been a tad more convincing if his party were not preventing citizens from voting for anyone other than Biden in the primary. Florida called its Democratic primary for Biden and blocked opposing candidates, despite two-thirds of Democrats wanting an alternative to Biden. Faced with such polling numbers, the party establishment is so committed to democracy that it has decided voters cannot be trusted with a choice. North Carolina’s Democrats became the latest to bar anyone but Biden from the ballot.
Democratic officials are approaching democracy the way Henry Ford responded to calls for different color choices for the Model T. He pledged to provide “any color the customer wants, as long as it’s black.” In this election, voters can choose anyone they want, as long as it is Biden.
For millions of voters, democracy may be on the ballot but it is aspirational. If you vote for Biden, you might just get democracy back, but only after the election.
Even more galling was Biden’s claim to be the defender of free speech. As I have previously written, Biden has been the most anti-free speech president since John Adams. His administration has been unrelenting in pushing for censorship and blacklisting of those with opposing views.
The Biden censorship efforts have been described by one federal court as unprecedented in our history and a virtual “Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth.’” The Biden Administration has called for the censorship of even true statements that it deems misleading.
For Biden to run on free speech is about as convincing as Bill Clinton running on abstinence.
Biden hopes that voters will buy the “don’t vote for me, vote for democracy” line. However, it does not appear to be working thus far. Indeed, the Valley Forge speech was another example of “the sound of one hand clapping” with the same 40 percent or so that is clinging to Biden in the polls.
This time, however, he dropped the hellish red back drop from Philadelphia in 2022, when he denounced Trump supporters as enemies of the people. Instead, he did everything he could to channel the spirit of George Washington, short of appearing in a Continental uniform.
Of course, Washington was a unifying figure in his time. He did not declare all Tories to be traitors. Many Tories and former loyalists would ultimately join his cause. Biden portrayed the 74 million voters for Trump as virtual redcoats seeking the return of the monarchy.
The key to Washington’s success is that he was at Valley Forge. He lived through the deprivations imposed upon his men and defended democracy by refusing invitations to become a monarch. If Biden wants to assume the mantle of a Washington, he could start by supporting democracy, practicing it in both the primary and in general election by calling for voters to be given their choice of candidates.
Given his record, Biden’s effort to disguise himself as George Washington left him looking foolish in a uniform two sizes too big for his stature.
Biden has a consistent record of only supporting principles and positions that bring political benefits. While James Freeman Clarke once said that statesmen think of the next generation, Biden has rarely thought beyond the next election.
Moreover, Biden’s effort to champion the Constitution was contradicted by a long line of decisions finding that he has violated the Constitution with impunity. This includes rulings that his administration has exceeded his authority and engaged in racial discrimination in federal programs. Indeed, Biden has often displayed a cavalier attitude toward such violations.
For example, the Biden Administration was found to have violated the Constitution in its imposition of a nationwide eviction moratorium through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Biden admitted that his White House counsel and most legal experts told him the move was unconstitutional. But he ignored their advice and went with that of Harvard University Professor Laurence Tribe, the one person who would tell him what he wanted to hear. It was, of course, then quickly found to be unconstitutional.
Biden showed the same disregard over the unconstitutionality of his effort to unilaterally forgive roughly half a trillion dollars in student debt.
Biden has never allowed principle to stand before politics.
That is why Biden is no Washington. It is not even clear that Biden makes a convincing Biden. His checkered history of violating the Constitution has left little real notion of what he values beyond the politically expedient.
The tragedy of Biden is not that he has not reached the heights of Washington. Few ever have. The tragedy is that we may never know if Biden could rise to meet his own Valley Forge challenge.
Jonathan Turley is the J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University Law School.
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Beirut, Lebanon – On Tuesday, representatives from Lebanon and Israel met at the US Department of State in Washington, DC – the first session of a two-day round of negotiations that Lebanese negotiators hope will end an invasion of their country.
The negotiations, which started at 9am local time (13:00 GMT), come as Israel’s invasion of Lebanon pushes deeper than at any point since the year 2000 and as Hezbollah and Israel continue to trade attacks. Israel has killed 3,468 people in Lebanon since March 2, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health.
With the war raging on, what do Lebanon and Israel have to discuss and will the talks lead to an end of the Israeli assault?
Here’s everything you need to know.
What will Israel and Lebanon discuss?
Similar to past meetings, the two sides are ostensibly looking to come to some kind of deal following fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, with strong doubts it will be achieved.
Lebanon’s government is still pushing for a total ceasefire. However, as talks started, Israel was striking various parts of southern Lebanon. Lebanon is also trying to get Israel to withdraw from Lebanese territory in the south, so that more than 1.2 million displaced people can return home, and so the state can resume finding a way to disarm Hezbollah and rebuild areas devastated by Israeli attacks.
Israel is meanwhile looking to get assurances that Lebanon will disarm Hezbollah, a prospect analysts say Israel knows is complicated by the continuation of its military operations and occupation of swaths of southern Lebanon. Instead, Israel appears to be trying to fuel sectarian tensions inside Lebanon, leading to chaos and internal strife.
What has happened so far?
An initial meeting took place in April between Israel and Lebanon’s ambassadors to the United States. A second round took place in May with a larger delegation on both sides.
On Friday, a meeting took place with Lebanese and Israeli military representatives, while Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese group, is not involved in the meetings.
Israel claimed the two sides found common ground in that they both wanted to see Hezbollah disarmed. Some Israeli officials suggested there may soon be trade agreements and an exchange of tourists between the two countries. Lebanon, however, said it preferred to find a deal closer to the 1949 armistice agreement between the two countries.
In the last meeting, Beirut reportedly outlined the damage done by Israeli attacks since the 2024 ceasefire agreement and presented detailed maps showing homes destroyed or razed by Israel.
Is there a chance for a ceasefire?
That remains to be seen, but for now, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country’s military would continue attacking Lebanon.
On Monday, Netanyahu announced that attacks on Beirut’s southern suburbs would resume, despite a ceasefire. Apart from two targeted attacks, Israel has not struck the suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, since April.
Iran, which has attempted to include Lebanon in a wider ceasefire between themselves, on one side, and Israel and the US on the other, then intervened by threatening to attack northern Israel.
US President Donald Trump reportedly intervened to stop Israel’s attacks. He announced another ceasefire, after his previous announcement of one between Israel and Lebanon on April 16, after claiming he had gotten the approval of Netanyahu and spoken to Hezbollah.
“There will be no troops going to Beirut, and any troops that are on their way have already been turned back,” Trump announced on his social media platform, Truth Social.
But attacks from Israel and Hezbollah are continuing.
How do Lebanese people feel about the talks?
Not everyone is on the same page.
Some Lebanese support the talks and say they are the only option the state, which has little leverage, has. Among those who believe direct talks are the best way forward are Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
“There is no option other than negotiation,” Aoun said in a statement on Tuesday.
Others, however, oppose direct talks. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri and his allies, Hezbollah, have said indirect talks are preferred and that negotiations cannot be conducted while attacks are ongoing.
How are Iran and the US connected?
Israel and the US attacked Iran on February 28, killing the country’s longtime leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran is Hezbollah’s primary benefactor, and two days after Khamenei’s assassination, Hezbollah fired six rockets towards Israel on 2 March.
Hezbollah’s response brought a huge response from Israel, who have crossed the Litani River – the supposed buzzer zone in southern Lebanon it had created – towards the Zahrani River.
Despite a 2024 ceasefire, Israel had never stopped attacking Lebanon, while Hezbollah had only responded once in December 2024.
Iran has attempted to include Lebanon in the ceasefire deal it has with the United States and Israel, who say this theatre is not part of the agreement.
Although Trump has now announced a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel twice, the invasion of southern Lebanon continues.
Are there other actors involved?
Gulf states have also intervened. Saudi Arabia has been working behind the scenes to get Lebanon’s leadership – Aoun, Salam and Berri – on the same page. Meanwhile, analysts say Saudi Arabia and Qatar engaged the Trump administration to stop an escalation in Lebanon.
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A contract worker was killed by a falling tree on Monday afternoon in Washington County, officials said.
The Washington County Office of the Coroner said in a news release that the contractor was killed after the tree fell on them around 4 p.m. The worker, who was not immediately identified, was hired to cut down a tree at a residence on Lynn Portal Road in Canton Township, and it fell in an unintended direction, killing the person, the coroner said.
No other information was immediately released on Monday evening. The Greene-Washington Regional Police Department and the coroner are investigating.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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