How Biden’s 'sheer political craft' makes him 'significant a Democrat president as' FDR: columnist

After President Joe Biden's fall earlier this week following his Air Force Academy commencement speech, many who were already questioning the 80-year-old president's competency due to age, believed the accident served as evidence to back their argument.

Observer columnist Will Hutton, in an op-ed published by The Guardian Sunday, argues the president's policy track record and recent "extraordinary victory" in striking a debt ceiling debt to avoid defaulting suggests otherwise.

The columnist insists Biden "has had to rely on guile, sheer political craft and reading the Washington runes better than any alive," opposed to his "famous predecessors," who "had their big majorities in Congress," and controlled "the House of Representatives."

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Furthermore, Hutton writes:

Tomorrow was to be the witching day when default occurred and a financial crisis engulfed the world. Instead, last week the wily Biden again outfoxed his opponents, and struck a deal massively weighted in his favour that was voted for by overwhelming majorities. It was an extraordinary victory and, when invited to claim it as such, he replied: 'You think that's going to help me get it passed?' First rule in Washington politics, from which the affable Biden has never deviated: always allow the defeated to save face because you’re soon going to have to cut another deal with them.

Additionally, despite ageist jabs, Hutton argues Biden "is already being regarded by many Democrats, and some Republicans, as significant a Democrat president as Franklin Roosevelt or Lyndon Johnson," adding, "He is dramatically changing the face of the US around Democrat priorities – reindustrialisation to support blue-collar jobs and wages, wholeheartedly fighting climate change, investing massively in science and education, doing more for the poorest and, not least, rejuvenating the US's decaying public infrastructure."

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Will Hutton's full op-ed is available at this link.