WASHINGTON — FROM THE HOUSE LIVE

“The high honor … of presenting to you, the President of the United States!” — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

Showtime. The State of the Union rituals quell doubts the nation can long endure. There’s no love lost across the aisle in the House of Representatives chamber, nor in the evenly divided Senate over on the Capitol’s other side.

But for this one night, lawmakers are all here, banishing memories of the Jan. 6, 2021, mob. So is the Cabinet and the Pentagon brass. The Supreme Court was expected to attend, though only five showed. A fresh foreign policy crisis in Ukraine is underway just as the pandemic wanes.

President Joe Biden is right where he needs to be in a crisis presidency: center stage, speaking straight over his foes in the hall to the American people and the free world.

“We are going to be OK” is no fancy flight of Obama-esque oratory. But you know, that’s OK. Biden is more believable, if you want to know the truth.

Just Joe and you, Joe and me, in his warm, direct voice, calling for praise and aid for the besieged people of Ukraine. “Pure courage,” he said.

No longer just a “former comedian,” President Volodymyr Zelensky won the world’s heart by bravely facing the Russian onslaught of Ukraine.

“(Russian President Vladimir) Putin is more isolated than he has ever been,” Biden declared, pleasing both sides of the House. American airspace will be closed to Russian planes, he announced, adding that NATO (the North Atlantic Treaty Organization) will keep its promise to defend every member nation.

Yet we live on tenterhooks on the first of March, as we ponder what the Russian war on Ukraine means for us. The unspoken question hanging over our heads: is Putin a mad man or a madman?

You tell me.

Zealous Putin, a former KGB spy, is driven by dreams of Mother Russia. American spy agencies need to read his mind better here and now, given reports that he seems changed and “strategically self-defeating,” as an expert put it.

Back in the House, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W. Va., was the sole Democrat sitting on the Republican side, hanging out with Mitt Romney, R-Utah. Bad optics, Joe.

Manchin is a dealbreaker in Biden’s agenda for voting rights and his social infrastructure package, Build Back Better. In a 50-50 Senate, Democrats can’t afford to lose one vote, a power the conservative Manchin uses liberally.

Biden pivoted to address the divide, the elephants and donkeys in the room.

“Let’s stop seeing each other as enemies and start seeing each other for who we really are: Fellow Americans,” Biden said. “We can’t change how divided we’ve been. But we can change how we move forward.”

Simple words, spoken to a chamber that seemed sobered up by how hard Ukrainians fought to hold onto their country, cities and land. They were showing us how much democracy meant.

Suddenly, the spirit lifted, less partisan than usual. I know, this wasn’t my first rodeo.

On politics, the president smartly condemned the “Defund the Police” slogan and spoke up for corporate tax fairness. He wants downtowns to fill up again and hinted that social media companies, Big Tech, might be in for some regulation. Wouldn’t that be nice.

Neighbors visiting from across the street (the Supreme Court) were harsh reminders that climate change and reproductive rights may rest in the high Court’s hands.

The 6-3 radical Republican court has so much sway over us and is fully ready to use it.

Biden spoke of the two-year plague with the right sober touch: “We have lost so much to COVID-19. Time with one another. And worst of all, so much loss of life.”

With that, Biden then reached up for the sky. “Now is the hour … we will save democracy.”

Gathered in the main chamber of democracy’s heart, we could hear it beating better.

Biden is only the third president in American history to enter office as a “crisis president.” Others were Abraham Lincoln confronting the Civil War and Franklin D. Roosevelt burdened with the Great Depression.

Lincoln and Roosevelt had surpassing skills as speakers. But this is no ordinary time, and the president is no ordinary Joe.

Jamie Stiehm writes on politics and history. She may be reached at JamieStiehm.com.

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