Séamas O'Reilly: Should Joe Biden just do a Zoom call next time?
US President Joe Biden at Dublin Castle for the official dinner where he was greeted by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar. Pic: Julien Behal
I remember former US President Bill Clinton’s visit to my hometown, Derry, in 1995. The trip likely involved significant contributions to politics, but I remember it for the surreal sight of him turning on the city’s Christmas lights.
He did so happily. So happily, in fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking it had been his longest-held ambition, and indeed his only reason for making the trip, or even getting into politics in the first place.
I’ll admit it did raise the bar fatally high for all those who came next, however. The following year, the button was pushed by five people dressed in homemade Power Rangers costumes. I believe the press recorded a smaller crowd on that occasion.
US President Joe Biden landed in Ireland this week and perhaps you were among the crowds. The excitement must be what these trips are for, since it’s hard to make a case that any of the actual work couldn’t be done more efficiently by other means.
The trips are probably a holdover from when presidents had to physically be in a space to remind people they were the leader of the most powerful country on Earth, and has merely frozen in place since because the rest of the world gets a kick out of it.
In fairness, Irish politicians don’t really emit star power, so seeing bona fide celebrities, like US presidents, popes, or the odd king or queen, standing next to them confers a nebulous glamour to our local news, a bit like when movie stars used to do cameos on Friends. It was a bit weird and vaguely awkward, sure, but still exciting for its incongruence.
Stripping away the larger, political concerns of the Good Friday Agreement’s 25th anniversary, and the more mundane tasks of fostering business and cultural links with our neighbours to the west, Biden’s visit appears to have been, well, more of a vibes thing, trading amply off his own very real connections to the country which sired five eights of his ancestors.
Biden appears to like Ireland very much, and duly repaid us for our hospitality with a beautiful series of his trademark gaffes.
Confusing the All Blacks with the Black and Tans was, let’s be honest, a masterstroke, as was his choice to greet the fine spread in a Dundalk deli with the exclamation “I don’t know why my ancestors left!” Since said ancestors left Louth in the 1840s, one can only make educated guesses as to what they found lacking about the local food.
At the time of writing, it remains to be seen if Ireland will confer upon him its highest accolade: Naming a petrol station forecourt in his honour; we can only hope.
His trip started in Belfast on Tuesday, where he was greeted by Rishi Sunak, who then slept over in Belfast so he could be up in time for another mildly drowsy meeting with the President over tea, in full view of the world’s press.
Admittedly, their conversation was short, featured as much insightful chat as a badly translated SNES game, and was conducted over a table so weirdly small that it looked like it was taking place in the business suite in a youth hostel, but it was business, nonetheless.
From there, he was swiftly ferried to deliver a stirring speech on the Good Friday Agreement’s anniversary and then, some fifteen hours after his arrival, pummelled southward on Air Force One to begin three days in the Republic.
I was once again reminded that being a world leader is not a job I would want, much less one I’d spend years, and billions of dollars, to attain. Nowhere was this clearer than during Trump’s presidency, which handily illustrated this horror of this role by subjecting it to someone who clearly hated it.
Perhaps the sole saving grace of Trump’s time in office, was the fact he’d contrived to trap himself in a job he both wanted above all things, and visibly loathed having to actually do. I presume this is why he spent every possible moment tweeting from the toilet, or waddling around his golf course.
Many used this as a cudgel to beat Trump with - and with great justification – but so help me God, it was the most relatable thing he’s ever done. I know I’d demonstrate a similar lack of engagement with the task, were it ever visited upon me.
(For the record, I would never voluntarily visit a golf course, and would thus probably be the first American president to be voted out of office due to time spent, face down, in the Lincoln bedroom, weeping from stress).
Biden seems more amenable to the job than Trump, and his fondness toward Ireland seems sincere.
But the whizz-bang pageantry, the waving, the smiling, and the hand-shaking, mostly made me convinced he needed a rest. Watching him ferrying between smiling people like fleshy checkpoints on a long itinerary, delivering pre-prepared statements, and pointing at landmarks that pass so fast, no human could ever place them in their film of memory, left me exhausted.
I’m glad he got to inconvenience Sunak, and reference the Black & Tans, in person, but maybe he can do it on a Zoom call next time.
Failing that, send a stand-in. I believe the Power Rangers are available.
