Joseph Robinette Houdini and...
The Plan Ahead, Be Flexible Principle
From almost the day of his inauguration, the question about Biden has been can he possibly make it? He is too old, even older than Reagan, who by the end of his second term was probably gaga. He stumbles over words and there are too many of them. His walk is stiff. The litany of disarray is long.
And yet, Biden and his remarkably stable team are confoundingly effective against the odds in Congress and in mobilizing the West on behalf of Ukraine.
So, will he? Won’t he? In 2024? The consensus in Washington I’ve heard is yes. And there is no doubt that in word and activity, preparations are underway. Even Jill Biden is playing along. So why question the proposition?
If Donald Trump is, as expected, indicted in New York and perhaps Georgia and then by the Department of Justice, the political process will have to decide what to do with him. At that point, Biden could announce that he has too much left to do in these next two years to be running for president against an indicted opponent he has already beaten.
So, he can use a prime time address to let the Democrats decide who should be the candidate in 2024 and it won’t be J.R. Houdini. That is the Plan Ahead and Be Flexible Principle. TBD.
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Under the headline, Security, Human Rights and Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine, this piece appeared here recently.
On Thursday evening, March 23, at 7 P.M. at Politics & Prose in Washington, I’ll be in discussion about my book Would You Believe….The Helsinki Awards Changed the World? with David E. Hoffman, my former Washington Post colleague and leading savant on relevant matters. You can attend in person at the store, 5015 Connecticut Avenue NW, register to watch it on the website. C-SPAN will cover for eventual viewing.
Indeed a must-watch event! I still recall the Belgrade Conference of 1977 establishing then CSCE, which I covered for The New York Times. It was certainly an epic event, and my first major story as the newly-installed East European bureau chief of The Times (based, in those days, in Belgrade). Arthur Goldberg was the head of the US delegation, still smarting over his ill-conceived decision to accept the 'deal' offered by President Lyndon Johnson to leave his lifelong post as a Supreme Court justice. Larry Eagleburger was the newly-arrived US ambassador. And the rest of the European & American delegations were equally memorable. The results only became known as the years went on, the Iron Curtain fell, and the OSCE outlasted them all. Just yesterday, I was in touch with their 'Observer' delegation monitoring the elections in Kazakhstan. It is an organization that continues to prove its value unceasingly! So, Bravo Peter !!