A presidential speech that rivals Biden’s for worst in modern history |

 

Power Line   "Yesterday, in a post about Joe Biden’s historically bad speech in Georgia, I invited history-minded readers to tell me about a president’s speech worse than Biden’s. Professor Andrew Busch has cited one for me.

Andrew Busch is Crown Professor of Government and George R. Roberts Fellow at Claremont McKenna College. He reached back to 1948 to find a case of a president rivaling Biden for vitriol and demagoguery.

"Andy writes:

Without in any way demeaning Biden’s accomplishment, I would suggest one possible competitor.

Toward the end of his 1948 come-from-behind campaign, Harry Truman delivered a speech in Chicago on October 25 which rivalled Biden’s in its scale of sheer demagoguery. “In our time,” Truman said, “we have seen the tragedy of the Italian and German peoples, who lost their freedom to men who made promises of unity and efficiency and sincerity…and it could happen here.”

Truman suggested that Republican nominee Thomas Dewey was only a “front man” for a clique of fascistic businessmen such as those who propelled Mussolini and Hitler into power. Sounding amazingly like Joe Biden, Truman declared that “Republican leaders, of course, give lip service to the principles of democracy. But the Republicans preach one thing and practice another. The actions of the Republican 80th Congress opened the gate to forces that would destroy our democracy…This is not just a battle between two parties. It is a fight for the very soul of the American Government.” For the whole text, see [here].

"Truman’s Chicago speech is an example of Harry “giving em hell.” Truman liked to say he didn’t give Republicans hell, he just told the truth and they think it’s hell.

"But in Chicago at least, the hell Truman gave was slander of the most egregious kind." .  . .

Worst presidential speech in modern history? | Power Line (powerlineblog.com)   "Has any president in the last 50 years delivered a worse speech than Joe Biden did yesterday in Georgia? The only one that comes immediately to my mind is Jimmy Carter’s “malaise” address of 1979. But impolitic as it was, at least that speech contained a kernel of truth.

I invite the distinguished presidential scholars among our readers and my co-bloggers to point to a speech worse than Biden’s.

"How bad was the speech? So bad that even ankle-biting partisan Dick Durbin found it objectionable. Putting it as politely and as compatibly with his rank partisanship as reasonably possible, Durbin agreed that Biden “went a little too far in his rhetoric.”

"I want to make two observations about Biden’s speech. First, it was boycotted by Georgia’s leading “voting-rights” activists. Leaders of a coalition of voting rights groups declined to attend.

"Even Stacey Abrams was a no-show. She cited “scheduling issues,” a laughably implausible excuse for not attending a presidential speech in her backyard." . . .

Mr. Biden has a diploma from the Joy Reid School of Public Speaking.