Joe Biden: A ‘lion of history’ who struck a blow for democracy

Joe Biden entered politics as one of the youngest senators in American history, and he leaves as its oldest president.

“It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President,” wrote Biden in a letter published Sunday, confirming the end of his political career. “And while it has been my intention to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.”

Few others have had such a sweeping view of what moves people and power in this country. He held a front-row seat to great shifts in America’s culture and identity, from the height of its post-Cold War strength to a nation in conflict with itself.

In the end, that experience weighed him down. At 81 years old, with more than 50 of those spent in frontline national politics, he was reluctant to pass on the torch because he believed those years mattered above all else.

“I have acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom and know more than the vast majority of people," Biden said in an interview last year when questions about his age were becoming harder to ignore. “And I’m more experienced than anybody that’s ever run for the office.”

But besides the physical and mental toll of aging, this long view of the world and his country blinded him to how much both had changed.

It showed in the last year in his handling of the war in Gaza, which seemed to be shaped by his relationship with an Israel that no longer existed — one where the US supported an ostensibly liberal state in wars against its autocratic Arab neighbors, not a far-right government against a largely defenseless population.

It showed in his belief that he could oversee a