Welcome to POLITICO’s West Wing Playbook, your guide to the people and power centers in the Biden administration. With help from producer Raymond Rapada. Send tips | Subscribe here | Email Eli | Email Lauren PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off next week for the holidays but back to our normal schedule on Tuesday, Jan. 2. We hope absence makes the heart grow fonder. President JOE BIDEN said goodbye today to the late Justice SANDRA DAY O’CONNOR in a speech that was a remembrance of a historic life but, at its core, an ode to an era of politics that no longer exists. “To her, the Supreme Court was the bedrock — the bedrock of America. It was the vital line of defense for the values and the vision of our republic. Devoted not to the pursuit of power for power’s sake but to make real the promise of America,” the president said at the service held in the Washington National Cathedral. The eulogy was one of many Biden has delivered during his presidency: at least eight in total at memorial services. He’s given so many that we first wrote about this phenomenon nearly two years ago. Part of it has to do, quite obviously, with age. While in office, Biden has watched several of his peers die and has attended many funerals where he hasn’t spoken. But eulogies have also become part of the president’s political salesmanship. He is not just paying tribute to these figures but evoking an image of governance he has tried to revitalize. He did it at HARRY REID’s service, when he spoke about the late Democratic senator’s loyalty. “He didn’t do what the modern-day rationale is: ‘When I told you I would do that, I didn’t realize that this would happen.’ No matter what happened, if he gave you his word, he kept it. You could bank on it.” And again, after the passing of Republican Sen. BOB DOLE: “Bob was a man who always did his duty, who lived by a code of honor.” He’s eulogized ASH CARTER, WALTER MONDALE, JOHN WARNER, RUTH ANN MINNER and MADELEINE ALBRIGHT, too. During Biden’s eulogy at O’Connor’s memorial, the political backdrop and transformation of the Supreme Court since her retirement was unmistakable. O’Connor was seen as the most powerful woman in the country during a crucial time in American law. Appointed by RONALD REAGAN, she was viewed as a centrist as she weighed in on decisions that shaped key issues like abortion, affirmative action, sex discrimination and voting rights. Under his presidency, Biden has watched the crumbling of many of the judicial pillars she helped erect. And he hasn’t been quiet about his feelings: “This is not a normal court,” Biden said immediately following the ruling to overturn affirmative action. He’s also called the court “extreme” and “out of control.” On Tuesday, the rhetoric may have been less charged, but the message reflected the same vein. “For America to thrive, Americans must see themselves not as enemies, but as partners in the great work of deciding our collective destiny,” Biden said. “That’s the essence of our national experience. The sacred cause of democracy she devoted her life to — one that we must continue.” Few, if any, presidents have been as closely associated with the concept of mourning as Biden. It is the mourning of a bygone era, the one he discussed Tuesday, that is central to much of his political appeal — the idea that something fundamental in our politics has been lost but can be refound. But it is the personal mourning — and matters of sadness and grief — that play a prominent role in his biography and persona. It is why he exhibits such a level of calm and comfort in speeches that others find impossible to deliver. On Monday, one day before Biden eulogized O’Connor, he visited the gravesite where his first wife and daughter are buried following their fatal accident 51 years ago. “I know the anniversaries and the birthdays, the moments big and small, will be hard without them,” Biden said Tuesday, “but as the saying goes, memory has the power to gather roses in winter.” MESSAGE US — Are you GIANNA JUAREZ, associate director for leadership development and appointee engagement? We want to hear from you. And we’ll keep you anonymous! Email us at westwingtips@politico.com. Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe here!
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