With the lowest favorability rating of any exiting president since Richard Nixon, Joe Biden sought something, anything, he could latch onto to call a win amidst an administration distinguished by failure.
He thought he’d found it Friday by announcing that the Equal Rights Amendment had finally been ratified, which was first proposed and approved by Congress more than 50 years ago. After that it struggled to be ratified by the three-fourths of the state legislatures as required by the Constitution.
"Today I'm affirming what I have long believed and what three-fourths of the states have ratified," Biden announced on Twitter/X:
"The 28th Amendment is the law of the land, guaranteeing all Americans equal rights and protections under the law regardless of their sex."
Where would the president come up with such a bone-headed idea?
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., apparently believed amendments could be ratified by the president, and enlisted dozens of other Senate Democrats in the scheme.
"Throughout 2024, Gillibrand met with top officials in the Biden administration pushing the president to take action on the ERA," her office said in a statement released Friday.
"In November, she led a group of forty-six senators in a letter to President Biden, urging him to seize the initiative on the issue."
"Last month, Gillibrand penned a piece in The New York Times laying out the theory behind her arguments. The New York Times podcast 'The Daily' published an episode last month recounting her efforts."
But that’s not up to the president.
The call to officially publish ratified amendments is made by the Archivist of the United States, and that office has a difference of opinion.
Nevertheless, the trained seals that make up the Democratic Party dutifully clapped on cue, beginning with Vice President Kamala Harris.
"The Equal Rights Amendment is the 28th Amendment, and it is the law of the land," she tweeted, and attached a two-paragraph statement on equality.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., also congratulated the president.
"NEWS: President Biden officially recognized the Equal Rights Amendment as the 28th amendment to our Constitution. This is a major victory for women more than 50 years in the making," Duckworth tweeted.
"Because no American should ever face discrimination on the basis of sex."
George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley mocked both the president and fellow Democrats falling for this.
"The claim that the ERA was ratified is absurd," he wrote. "This is pandering to the most delusional segment of his party."
The ERA’s ratification had a built-in 10-year expiration in which to get the required 38 states to sign on, which came and went more than 40 years ago.
Moreover, the late liberal U.S. Supreme Court Justice "Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in 2020 that advocates of the ERA would need to start the process over because the deadline for ratification had passed," wrote John McCormack, senior editor for The Dispatch.
He added that according to the National Archivist, "In 2020 and again in 2022, the Office of Legal Counsel of the U.S. Department of Justice affirmed that the ratification deadline established by Congress for the ERA is valid and enforceable."
The proposed Equal Rights Amendment provided, in pertinent part, that "Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex."
But equality is already the law of the land.
Nevertheless, a rallying cry of the ERA’s proponents was that the word "woman" or "women" appears nowhere in the U.S. Constitution and its amendments.
But then again, the words "man" and "men" are also missing.
Instead, it uses "person" or "persons" 49 times, and it references "people" nine times, as in the Second Amendment, which guarantees that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."
That would seem to cover everyone.
Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, thought the timing of Biden’s announcement was especially significant.
"The fact that President Biden waited until his last days in office to announce this underscores its illegitimacy," she reasoned. "Biden even pardoned Hunter before doing this."
And that’s exactly the point of it all. Biden failed America during his four years starting with a bungled Afghanistan withdrawal, followed by crippling inflation, open borders, a disastrous energy policy, a dismal national security record and a rising crime.
He failed the world by creating conditions that made war in Ukraine and Israel possible.
So he needed to go out with a win, but it was all an illegitimate illusion . . . just like his presidency.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and has been a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He is also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz's Reports — More Here.