George Clooney is known for a lot of things: accomplished actor and filmmaker, bona fide “hunk,” noted family man in an industry not known for such a lifestyle.
Political scholarship doesn’t come to mind when I think of George Clooney.
Yet the actor has offered what I believe is a spot-on critique of President Biden when he calls the president’s decision to step down from his re-election campaign the “greatest selfless act” perhaps since the time George Washington decided that two terms as POTUS was enough.
Biden’s withdrawal from the campaign and his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris is the rarest of all acts, given that Biden surrendered the enormous power he possessed as POTUS.
That act of selflessness is going to ensure, in my mind, historians’ verdict on Biden’s presidency and his willingness to surrender the power that goes with occupying it.
Biden did not want to step aside after that debate performance that prompted the tongue-wagging that questioned his mental acuity. He faced enormous pressure from Democrats, his friends and allies … and from George Clooney, whose op-ed column in the New York Times shook the political world at its core.
It is President Biden, though, who deserves the bouquet, as his decision to surrender power well might save this country from madness and mayhem.