Joe Biden’s borderline catatonic debate performance appears to have surprised most Americans. Yet news outlets are finally admitting that those closest to him have known all along that, while many elderly people have “senior moments,” the 82-year-old Biden experiences full blown senior hours.
We’re now feeling the storm surge of anonymous aides who are channeling their faux shock that -- like the tale where everyone knew but kept silent that the emperor had no clothes -- the American president has no clue.
Prior to the debate debacle, only a few Biden confidantes anonymously spoke to the press about the president’s failing faculties. The public line was much different -- Nancy Pelosi swore that Biden was “very sharp,” his national co-chair dismissed questions about presidential proficiency as a “bucket of B.S.,” and MSNBC loudmouth Joe Scarborough claimed – with a straight face – that Biden is “better than he’s ever been intellectually, analytically.”
The Biden family knows more about it than anyone else. Yet they’re blaming the makeup artist, the moderators, and the camera operators for the president’s disastrous debate performance. Puppeteers never like it when the audience can spot the strings.
No wonder Team Biden is fighting an all-out legal war to hide the recording of Biden’s interview with federal investigators. That audio would amplify why Biden’s own Justice Department determined that the president likely committed “a serious felony” by mishandling classified documents, but that a jury would likely look the other way since Biden is an elderly man with a poor memory.
While some Democrats anxiously debate whether to replace their nominee, there’s a more fundamental question at hand: what obligation do those in the inner circle have to alert their countrymen to a deeply impaired commander in chief?
During Donald Trump’s presidency, there was no credible argument that he suffered from cognitive deficiencies, but some political opponents vexed by his blunt and unpredictable style put forth the notion that the 25th Amendment process of unseating a president should be instituted. Yet frustration with a president’s political tactics or objectives is not why the Constitution was amended in that way.
The amendment was ratified after dark chapters of history were exposed, revealing a weak plank in the foundation of presidential power. Edith Wilson secretly took executive actions while husband President Woodrow Wilson was incapacitated by a stroke. A phalanx of FDR aides were mum about the president’s slow spiral into death. And President Kennedy’s team hid the president’s use of a dozen different drugs – including an antipsychotic – while projecting a false image of a young and vigorous chief executive.
That brings us back to the eye-opening debate. The question of intellectual capability goes directly to the ability of voters to discern whether Biden is fit to serve. For example, when he falsely claimed that no military members died on his watch, was he lying as he has so many times before or did his Swiss cheese memory simply not recall the 13 heroes killed when he ordered the reckless withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan?
Transparency in government leads to greater trust. At a time when polling shows trust in government is near an all-time low, those who work for and with a president must not concoct a false veneer of presidential competence.
How to achieve this goal? The strongest check on such deception is at the ballot box. Voters – the shareholders of the republic -- ought to punish the political party that covers for the misdeeds or incompetency of a president. We saw that in the post-Watergate congressional elections of 1974.
To accomplish that, Americans need information. Congress should demand that the White House release all internal emails and communications that discuss concerns about the president’s competency.
When top White House aides leave government, they often write tell-all books offering a behind the scenes glimpse of presidential doings. Accounts written by Biden appointees will likely share details of a president whose limited cognitive function requires comically short business days, nearly 40% of his term on vacation and away from the White House, and the ever-present hovering of his wife to guide him away from sharp objects and tripping hazards. Yet these confidantes owe us those hard truths now.
Which leads to another, bolder solution. Hold those who covered up Biden’s incapabilities responsible in the free market. I would never propose the despicable, Soviet-style delisting of people advanced against those who served in the Trump administration or supported his campaign efforts. A good old fashioned cold shoulder is a better approach.
Perhaps most deserving is White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre, who falsely and maliciously suggested that videos showing Biden’s incapabilities were somehow doctored or inaccurate. Never particularly qualified for honest communications tasks, to redress the disservice she did to the country by outright lying about the president’s mental fitness, her outreach to future employers ought to be heartily rebuffed.
People who corruptly conceal the disability of the leader of the free world commit a soft form of treason that may not be criminal, but it’s just as unpatriotic.