America's missing president
Nobody should be surprised by the recently released audiotapes confirming Joseph R. Biden’s lack of mental acuity as president. The Big Guy’s frequent verbal and physical stumbles during public events revealed that, at some point, he had become a shadow of the man who walked into the Senate chamber as its youngest member in 1973.
Two years ago, special counsel Robert Hur spent two days interrogating the octogenarian commander in chief about the classified documents he illegally stored in a tattered cardboard box in the garage of his Delaware home. By lapsing into and out of lucidity throughout the conversation, Mr. Biden escaped prosecution on the grounds that no jury would have the heart to convict a confused, old man.
Mr. Hur was pilloried for suggesting Mr. Biden was anything but healthy and vigorous, yet whispers about his fitness had circulated before he became the 2020 Democratic presidential contender. Those whispers became shouts as he accepted the party’s 2024 nomination. The legendary gaffes were an ever-present clue that something wasn’t quite right.
Mr. Biden even said in a 2015 interview with Stephen Colbert that he wasn’t sure whether he could devote his full energy to running the country. “I’d be lying if I said that I knew I was there. I’m being completely honest,” he said.
He was even less ready five years later, rarely venturing from his basement during the 2020 presidential campaign. Staff blamed COVID-19 for his refusal to face the public. Once assembled, Mr. Biden’s Cabinet could see he wasn’t fully there. Yet, these senior Democratic leaders declined to exercise their duty under the 25th Amendment to ensure the nation had a full-time president.
Over the weekend, we learned that Mr. Biden had suddenly come down with an advanced case of prostate cancer. Either the nation’s best physicians didn’t screen the president for one of the most common ailments among elderly men or the public was kept in the dark about that, too.
It matters because Mr. Biden could have been president right now had he skipped the 2024 debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump. After that disastrous performance, journalists could no longer get away with dismissing Mr. Biden’s moments of incoherence as a “stutter.”
The media have always been inclined to shield their preferred, but fallible, candidates from scrutiny. The press refused to disclose Franklin D. Roosevelt’s wheelchair confinement, for instance. Still, there was little doubt that FDR was in command at the White House.
The same can’t be said of Mr. Biden. Former infectious disease czar Anthony Fauci received a last-minute pardon signed by an autopen that replicated Mr. Biden’s signature. This raises questions about the legitimacy of a grant of clemency in the name of a president who may not have been aware of its issuance.
White House staff, particularly press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, did their best to protect their boss by concealing the impairment verified by Mr. Hur’s questioning. Ms. Jean-Pierre was doing her job. Newsmen, by contrast, are supposed to keep the public reliably informed.
That’s why the likes of CNN’s Jake Tapper are proposing to revise history by pretending they were never complicit in the deception. As late as last year, Mr. Tapper was decrying “false claims in The Wall Street Journal about President Biden’s mental fitness and acuity.”
Fortunately, Mr. Biden won’t be distracted by such concerns. Freed from the demands of public office, he can focus on healing on the way to what will be, hopefully, a speedy recovery.
— The Washington Times