If Biden is unfit to stand trial, he’s unfit to
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Posted On: 02/11/2024 10:31:46 AM
If Biden is unfit to stand trial, he’s unfit to lead America
Complaints about Joe Biden’s mental state are nothing new. As a senator he was capable of the most bizarre word-salads. Claims of incoherence dogged his vice-presidency. And in the run-up to the 2020 election Donald Trump repeatedly asserted that “Joe’s not really with us”.
Perhaps they overdid it. Ahead of the 2020 election all Biden had to do was turn up to the right lectern on the debate stage and not forget his name for voters to be satisfied that Trump had been overstating things.
But if one thing can be said with certainty after the past week, it is that Biden has not got better in the past four years. The Democrats have been so desperate to avoid a change of candidate in an election year that they willed the 81-year-old president on, always knowing that they may be one verbal or physical trip from disaster.
That disaster has now come in the form of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report concluded that any trial would not succeed; “Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”, while reasonable doubt could be inferred from his “diminished faculties in advancing age”.
In his interview with the counsel, Biden apparently could not remember when he was vice president, forgetting when his term of office began and when it ended. He did not remember “even within several years” when his son Beau died. He also, among other things, had a “hazy” memory of the Afghanistan debate.
The report landed like a thunderclap in Washington. And a clearly stung president did what his advisers should have advised him to absolutely not do, which was to appear before the press.
Politics aside, it was a pitiful sight. The president was clearly hurt – who would not be – by allegations of mental decline. He was especially wounded by the allegations that he could not remember when his son had died, immediately changing the terms of that discussion and implying that the report said he had in some way forgotten his son.
White House aides must already been on tenterhooks. After all, in the days prior to this press conference Biden had on two separate occasions suggested that he is communicating with the dead. Last Sunday in Nevada he said he had spoken to President Mitterand about recent events. François Mitterand died in 1996. On Wednesday he said at a campaign fundraiser in New York that the late German chancellor Helmut Kohl had talked to him about his concerns around Trump’s behaviour at the 2020 election. Kohl died in 2017. Biden had also appeared to forget the name of Hamas, referring to them as “the opposition” before being prompted by a member of the press.
So on Thursday night when Biden left the lectern, was called back by the media and actually returned, White House aides and any Democrat voter must have winced as one.
Clearly not on his best form, Biden was wooed into the matter of discussing the Middle East, a subject which could confound the memory of someone half Biden’s age on top mental form. Biden proceeded to talk about his negotiations with “the president of Mexico, Sisi”. President Sisi is of course the leader of Egypt, not of Mexico.
Republicans like Senator Rand Paul leapt on the moment. Referring to a Trump campaign promise, Paul suggested Biden announce that we’re “Gonna build a wall with Gaza and make Mexico pay for it and boy are they gonna be confused”.
Republicans have had fun with Biden for years. But this week the spectacle became very unfunny. It was just sad. The sort of moment when a person’s loved ones should step in and gently say something. Instead America is stuck with a question: if this is the president, who is running the show?
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-unfit-stand-tria...39730.html
Complaints about Joe Biden’s mental state are nothing new. As a senator he was capable of the most bizarre word-salads. Claims of incoherence dogged his vice-presidency. And in the run-up to the 2020 election Donald Trump repeatedly asserted that “Joe’s not really with us”.
Perhaps they overdid it. Ahead of the 2020 election all Biden had to do was turn up to the right lectern on the debate stage and not forget his name for voters to be satisfied that Trump had been overstating things.
But if one thing can be said with certainty after the past week, it is that Biden has not got better in the past four years. The Democrats have been so desperate to avoid a change of candidate in an election year that they willed the 81-year-old president on, always knowing that they may be one verbal or physical trip from disaster.
That disaster has now come in the form of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into Biden’s handling of classified documents. The report concluded that any trial would not succeed; “Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory”, while reasonable doubt could be inferred from his “diminished faculties in advancing age”.
In his interview with the counsel, Biden apparently could not remember when he was vice president, forgetting when his term of office began and when it ended. He did not remember “even within several years” when his son Beau died. He also, among other things, had a “hazy” memory of the Afghanistan debate.
The report landed like a thunderclap in Washington. And a clearly stung president did what his advisers should have advised him to absolutely not do, which was to appear before the press.
Politics aside, it was a pitiful sight. The president was clearly hurt – who would not be – by allegations of mental decline. He was especially wounded by the allegations that he could not remember when his son had died, immediately changing the terms of that discussion and implying that the report said he had in some way forgotten his son.
White House aides must already been on tenterhooks. After all, in the days prior to this press conference Biden had on two separate occasions suggested that he is communicating with the dead. Last Sunday in Nevada he said he had spoken to President Mitterand about recent events. François Mitterand died in 1996. On Wednesday he said at a campaign fundraiser in New York that the late German chancellor Helmut Kohl had talked to him about his concerns around Trump’s behaviour at the 2020 election. Kohl died in 2017. Biden had also appeared to forget the name of Hamas, referring to them as “the opposition” before being prompted by a member of the press.
So on Thursday night when Biden left the lectern, was called back by the media and actually returned, White House aides and any Democrat voter must have winced as one.
Clearly not on his best form, Biden was wooed into the matter of discussing the Middle East, a subject which could confound the memory of someone half Biden’s age on top mental form. Biden proceeded to talk about his negotiations with “the president of Mexico, Sisi”. President Sisi is of course the leader of Egypt, not of Mexico.
Republicans like Senator Rand Paul leapt on the moment. Referring to a Trump campaign promise, Paul suggested Biden announce that we’re “Gonna build a wall with Gaza and make Mexico pay for it and boy are they gonna be confused”.
Republicans have had fun with Biden for years. But this week the spectacle became very unfunny. It was just sad. The sort of moment when a person’s loved ones should step in and gently say something. Instead America is stuck with a question: if this is the president, who is running the show?
https://news.yahoo.com/biden-unfit-stand-tria...39730.html
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