Jill Biden, Philly Girl?

The Callen Report

By Kate Callen

As part of its coverage of the presidential debate calamity, the New York Times ran a July 3 opinion piece with a headline that caught me up short: “The ‘Philly Girl’ Shielding Biden from the Bad News.”

The op-ed by columnist Michelle Cottle recalled how Jill Biden physically blocked a heckler from approaching her husband at a 2020 campaign event. She told reporters afterward, “I’m a good Philly girl.”

“Philly tough,” Cottle wrote. “That is who Dr Biden is, fiercely and reflexively, when it comes to protecting and supporting her husband.”

Four years ago, we Philly girls were happy to take the win. This time is different. Defending a loved one from harm is something we do on autopilot. Pushing a loved one beyond his endurance at the risk of your country’s future? That’s not how we operate.

The 1,198 comments posted on Cottle’s “Philly Girl” column were overwhelmingly critical of Jill Biden.

Some of the harshest came, unsurprisingly, from Philadelphians.

Because we take pride in our legendary BS meters, a few of us were offended by the idea that, as one commenter wrote, “Philadelphian is synonymous with what, then – enabler? sycophant? obtuse?”

Several of us shot down Biden’s pedigree claims, noting that she isn’t actually from Philadelphia. “[She] was born in Hammonton, NJ [and] lived in Hatboro, PA and Willow Grove, PA,” wrote one commenter. “Both towns are in suburban Montgomery County.”

I don’t have the standing to fault Biden on that score. I’m a Philadelphian, but I wasn’t born in the city.

My father was a U.S. Army private stationed overseas, and my mother was a stateside military wife.

Delivering me at a local civilian hospital would have cost my parents money they didn’t have.

So when my mother felt the early signs of labor, her parents drove her 30 miles from South Philadelphia to the Valley Forge Army Hospital in Phoenixville, PA, where I was born for free. Days later, the four of us went home to Philly.

My Philadelphia childhood was wonderful. We had the run of lush parks, palatial museums a bus ride away, a magnificent public library system. And we felt privileged to grow up in the same town that gave the world America.

Schoolkids in the rest of the country learned the story of America from books. Philly kids learned it through osmosis. We walked inside the Independence Hall rooms where the Founders defiantly signed the Declaration of Independence. We looked up at the second-floor window where Betsy Ross stitched the first American flag.

Even at a young age, we grasped the enormity of how the colonists risked everything, and sacrificed much, to pursue a radical idea from ancient Greece that people could govern themselves. They hammered out the daunting logistics of how self-government could work in practice. Then they set aside their political differences, reached consensus, and forged ahead. They changed the course of history. And they did it in our city.

This is where I think Jill Biden has failed the test of Phillyhood. Democracy is civilization’s greatest achievement, and it might not survive the re-election of Donald Trump. No other consideration – not anyone’s political career or personal legacy – is more important. And no one understands that better than a Philadelphian.
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NYT column link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/opinion/jill-biden-first-lady-joe.html