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Many leaders and columnists seem intent on taking credit for President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 campaign, and they certainly had a role. What sometimes seems to be discounted is the credit that the president deserves. Whatever the backstory, his timing was brilliant. It would have been a mistake to withdraw before the Republican National Convention as subsequent events have shown. He could not have suggested he might withdraw until he did. He did not take too long!
I believe the backstory should be: He gave himself time until after the Republican convention to make a decision, and then he did. Perhaps he needed time to grieve and to see if he could remain the Democratic candidate. He gave himself the time until the right moment.
Look at what his timing has led to: disarray among Republicans, repeated missteps by Donald Trump and the certainty that the first woman of color would be nominated by the Democratic Party and I think will likely become the next president, a possibility that Biden not only created but endorsed in a way that immediately made her nomination inevitable.
Given that Biden is a brilliant political strategist — also a wise leader — should we really still imagine that he did not know what he was doing?
Tony Brinkley
Bangor
