Politico column takes aim at Biden's 'weakened capacity' to use bully pulpit: 'Half a president'

Politico's John Harris wrote in a column on Thursday that President Biden has "essentially been only half a president," and argued his address to the nation on Wednesday showed why he had to drop out of the race.

"It is [Donald] Trump who used the presidential pulpit — and the mania and obsessive interest that followed him even after he lost it — in ways consistent with the grain of American history. He preoccupies the psyche of the nation, no less among those who loathe him as among the half or nearly half who are open to returning him to power," Harris wrote. "It was Biden who is the tragic exception."

Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office on Wednesday and told Americans he was dropping out to unify the Democratic Party, adding that the election was about "defending democracy." Harris wrote that Biden's speech showed "a paradox," in which "Trump represents continuity and Biden is the anomaly."

"On the performative dimension of the presidency — using words to inspire his supporters, box in his enemies, to reframe debates — he [Biden] has been arguably the weakest Oval Office occupant in more than a century, back to the days before television or even radio, when most Americans might read about a presidential speech but had never heard the president’s voice," he continued.

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Harris argued that Biden did perform admirably when it came to passing legislation. He wrote Biden's voice has gotten fainter throughout his presidency and said the president's "thoughts straddle a line between discursive and incoherent."

"A president who was effective at waging a national argument and reframing debates to his advantage would not be facing a