Joe Biden's Final Act of Greatness

Only his closest friends and family can advise him on the way forward. But the only “hopeful” way forward, I believe, is for him to step aside and be the one to breathe new life into his party.

A photo released by the White House of U.S. President Joe Biden with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a surprise visit to Kyiv, Feb. 20, 2023.

By Michael Judge

I’m in Tokyo visiting family this summer, filing TFP posts from my wife’s home country and our 12-year-old son’s favorite place in the world, his grandparents’ house. I was planning a short vacation from writing this week but something disturbing derailed my plans: the U.S. presidential debate.

I watched a bit of it with my wife’s father, who’s 81, the same age as President Biden. His jaw dropped when he saw the “leader of the free world” staring blankly into the lights, stumbling over words and sentences, clearly confused—frightened even—a bit like an elderly friend who’s missed the bus.

“Biden and me. Same age,” Gigi (short for grandpa in Japanese) said, in his gentle, broken English; his voice full of concern and compassion, as if he understood the indignity Joe Biden was experiencing.

Gigi is not a politician, or a pub…