Joe Biden’s job description includes far more than signing documents in the Oval Office and making decisions that involve sending young men and women into harm’s way.
The president also must serve as comforter in chief. That role isn’t written anywhere. It’s just what presidents are called upon to do when the moment presents itself.
That moment arrived the other day when a white supremacist lunatic opened fire at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket; the gunman killed 10 Black Americans and injured three others.
Buffalo is shaken to its core. Its residents are horrified at the actions of a teenager who (allegedly) drove to the community, scope out the store and then committed the dastardly act.
Joe Biden demonstrated one of the key elements he brings to the presidency. He has suffered personal grief himself. He has buried two of his children and his wife. He spoke to Buffalo as a man who — and please pardon the phrase — feels their pain.
The president showed the entire world why many of us — such as me — are glad he is in the office he occupies.
Think for a minute of the Charlottesville, Va., riot in 2017. Klansmen, Nazis and assorted white supremacist goons gathered in that city to protest the taking down of a Civil War statue. A riot ensued when these individuals engaged with counter protestors. What did Donald Trump tell us? That there were “good people, on both sides.”
No. There were not.
The Buffalo News offered an editorial that stated, in part: But it was Biden’s words that carried weight in Buffalo on Tuesday. He offered an emotional roll call of the dead, but promised their survivors that some unexpected day, a memory of their lost loved one would bring a bittersweet surprise: “It’s going to bring a smile to your lip before it brings a tear to your eye,” the president said.
The president of the United States performed one of those unwritten tasks. The goodness of this man was evident as he sought to lend comfort to a stricken community.