Commentary
“I want to thank you for your compassion. We’re lucky to have you in the Oval Office and serving as the father of the country.” – Howard Stern
That embarrassing quote, an insult to George Washington, along with the gratuitous line, “I want to thank you for providing a calming, influential and organized administration,” came from President Biden’s hour-long appearance Friday on “The Howard Stern Show,” syndicated on Sirius XM radio.
Biden was provided an opportunity to tell more fabled stories of his life with Stern’s encouragement. The death of his first wife, meeting Jill and the death of his son, Beau. Emotionally vulnerable stories to highlight his capacity for compassion.
Missing, however, was the return of the 13 service members killed during Biden’s botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, when “Mr. Compassion” was observed checking his watch.
Biden’s appearance on Stern’s show, with its mostly white, upper middle-class listeners, or with George Stephanopoulos on ABC, is far from sitting down with the editorial staffs of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, which he has been criticized for avoiding.
The Real “Father of His Country”
A couple years ago, while visiting Mount Rushmore, one of a number of photos I took was the accompanying view of our first president George Washington, who became known as the “Father of His Country.”
As a youngster attending Longfellow Elementary School, I learned about Washington and the founding fathers, but it was many years later, when I had the privilege of visiting Valley Forge and his home at Mount Vernon, that I learned the origins of the “Father of His Country” title.
The informal title was bestowed upon him for his critical role during the Revolutionary War, the Constitutional Convention, and his two terms as our first president. Similar to the Latin phrase Patres Patriae, or Father of the Fatherland, it recognized Washington as the foremost figure in the founding of the nation.
There were several references to the title in 1776, but on November 26, 1777, Henry Knox, a Revolutionary War general and a founding father, wrote to Washington, stating, “the People of America look up to you as their Father, and into your hands they entrust their all.”
Can you imagine that being said about Biden?
Despite Biden’s feeble attempts to present himself as the preserver of the soul of America, and savior of democracy, as he mouths words from a teleprompter provided by a speechwriter, to be referred to as the “father of the country” by Stern, a “shock jock,” is an insult to Americans.
Washington was equally honored by foreign officials. Scottish politician David Steuart Erskine, Earl of Buchan, wrote of Washington as “the Father and Founder of the United States.”
“George Washington stood for what is now considered to be truly American,” a Mount Vernon display notes. “Besides publicly displaying grace and humility in every position of power and influence that he held in the colonies, Washington also espoused the ideals of liberty, justice, freedom, and individual dignity that are considered the foundation of the country of America.
“He displayed and promoted the qualities deemed by many after his time to be truly ‘American.’ It is only fitting to refer to him as the “Father of his Country.”
To identify Joe Biden as the “father of the country” is ludicrous and shameful.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
