Biden's bitter speech shows why he had to be cast aside

He finally said it, right at the end of a speech that confirmed the wisdom of those who forced him to step aside as the Democratic Party’s candidate: he was “too old to stay as president”.

- JOHN RENTOUL

Joe Biden has not, until now, given a reason for his withdrawal from the election.

It was a poor speech, not because he slurred his words and stumbled over phrases, but because it was one-note – literally a single, slightly shouted tone. But also metaphorically: one long, self-righteous tirade tinged with bitterness.

On the surface, the anger was aimed at Donald Trump and the threat he poses to democracy, but it wasn’t hard to hear the resentment at being pushed out of the arena to which Biden has devoted his entire adult life.

It was audible despite the repeated tributes to “Kamala and Tim”. He opened by asking delegates at the Democratic National Convention if they were “ready to elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz”. (They were.) He boasted of his record in office: “We have had one of the most extraordinary periods of progress ever – when I say ‘we’, I mean Kamala and me.”

He gave the “vice-president-soon-to-be-president” star billing in the story of how “we finally beat Big Pharma”, as she cast the tiebreaking vote in the Senate to cut prescription drug prices.