Biden’s decline

As I have noted several times here, I see Joe Biden as the man with half a mind to be president. The senior moments, the vacant stare, the dependence on written texts he struggles to follow, the pitty pat/short step gait and all the rest seem like telltale signs of a man well into his dotage. I feel juvenile saying it, but juvenile in an “Emperor’s new clothes” kind of way.

Despite the respectful media silence that generally obtains on the subject of Biden’s faculties and the bodyguard of “fact-checkers” protecting him, polls reflect that Americans harbor their doubts. We are instructed not to believe our lyin’ eyes, but we can’t help it and it gets harder every day.

New York Post columnist Karol Markowicz now takes up the subject. She observes (as the headline has it) that “Biden’s decline is obvious to everyone but the press.” Last week I mockingly “fact-checked” the display of Biden’s mental vacancy with which Markowicz leads off her column. Playing it straight, Markowicz observes: “[I]t would at least be nice if the president knew what he was talking about….He seems fully out of it, and we’re all quietly watching.”

Markowicz adduces a quote I had missed:

On Friday, Biden tried to comment on Florida’s new Parental Rights in Education law and came out with this word salad: “There’s nothing conservative about deciding you’re going to throw Disney out of its present posture because Mickey Mouse? In fact, do you think we should be not be able to say, you know, ‘gay’? I mean, what’s going on here?”

During the presidential campaign of 2020, I set the hypothetical over/under on Biden’s faculties at 40 percent. I thought that at 40 percent of capacity, however, Biden remained competitive with his serious Democratic rivals for the nomination. Now that Kamala Harris is vice president, the problem abides.

Whole thing here.

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