President Biden has an opportunity to stand above partisan rancor like few before him.

His election was less the result of any broad endorsement of Democratic Party economic or social agendas and more the result of centrists and swing voters crossing party lines in the hopes that Biden might restore the decency that former President Donald Trump stripped from the Oval Office. Because Biden was older on Inauguration Day than was former President Ronald Reagan when he left office, Biden likely will not seek a second term. Never before has lame-duck status coincided so completely with a political honeymoon. This, and the perspective borne of almost a half-century in office, gives Biden a unique opportunity to right past wrongs, even when the immediate political rewards of doing so might be nonexistent.