I get what Kevin is getting at in his latest edition of the Tuesday newsletter. It would be better if political disputes played a less ubiquitous and pervasive role in American life, and it would be better if this country had a less imperial presidency, where each day’s news didn’t revolve around what the man in the Oval Office was doing or saying. I, too, would love to live in a country where you could ignore the president most of the time, knowing that what he did had little influence over your daily life.
But as one of those guys who frequently points out how Biden rarely does more than one public event a day, rarely attends events at night, goes home to Delaware every weekend, rarely does sit-down interviews and sounds like he’s in a delusional state of denial when he does, let me explain why I feel the need to point this out with metronomic regularity.
Joe Biden didn’t have a particularly big role in public life from January 2017 to April 2019 – and from the moment he reemerged, a lot of us saw him and listened to him and marveled, “man, he got old.” Just go back and watch a few minutes of Biden’s speech at the 2016 Democratic convention – the energy, the movements, the look in his eyes, the volume and tenor of his voice. Back then, Biden was old but looked and seemed energetic, even feisty. By 2019, Biden was old and looked geriatric.
I think it was clear by spring of 2019 that Biden was getting too old to be an effective president. No doubt he had his good days and his bad days, but the presidency is a legendarily physically and psychologically taxing job, and there was no reason to think Biden would get sharper, wiser, more energetic, or better as he aged. Better, wiser, more responsible people would have advised Biden that he should be enjoying his golden years, not grappling with an ever-growing pile of domestic and foreign crises.
I think it’s clear some Democrats saw it, too. You have to wonder if that was a factor in Barack Obama’s lack of enthusiasm for a Biden presidential bid. Julian Castro went after Biden’s memory and mental capacities in one of the primary debates, and insisted afterwards that he didn’t regret it. (It didn’t help that Biden called Castro “Cisernos” a month later.) Liberal cartoonist Ted Rall contended that Biden clearly had worsening dementia and was incapable of performing the duties of the presidency.
Lots of us noticed that the Biden presidential campaign in the 2020 cycle didn’t have the former vice president out on the trail very much – and once the Covid-19 pandemic started, Biden largely disappeared, other than short, videotaped appearances. When some of us pointed out that Biden’s off-the-cuff remarks were increasingly incoherent word salads, we were accused of mocking him for a stutter. But we had eyes and ears, and could tell this wasn’t the guy Americans had listened to as vice president for eight years. Something about him wasn’t right anymore.
We were assured, over and over again, by Biden, his wife, his campaign staffers, and lots of Democratic officials that Joe Biden was in fine shape, physically and mentally. I think all these people were lying.
I think the people closest to Biden could tell that he was a man in his late seventies whose mind and body were not what they used to be, and whose focus, memory, stamina, judgment, and overall health were starting to falter. I think these people found reasons to play along with the lie that Biden was in excellent physical and psychological health. They wanted to see Trump defeated and thought Biden was the safest bet, they wanted to be close to a president, they thought Biden as president could be easily influenced, and so on. And I think the people around Biden have tried to hide the increasingly obvious throughout his presidency.
And now we’re stuck with the consequences of that lie. Biden is a tired, overwhelmed, erratic, frequently-irritable, defensive, prickly, forgetful, soon-to-be-octogenarian who should be enjoying a leisurely retirement full of trips to the ice cream shop with his granddaughters – not trying, and failing, to address all the problems in the world.
This afternoon, President Biden and the first lady will “visit a local COVID-19 vaccination clinic hosted by the District of Columbia’s Department of Health to highlight the recent authorization and recommendation of COVID-19 vaccines for children under age five.” This will be Biden’s first public event since 8:30 a.m. Friday.