As even some mainstream media outlets are reporting lately, the Democratic Party are in a “full-blown ‘freakout’” over Joe Biden’s re-election chances. There is, according to Politico, a “pervasive sense of fear” at the highest level of Dem HQ regarding Biden’s dropping poll numbers.
Then there’s Biden himself.
When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, he spoke so softly at times that some participants struggled to hear him, according to five people familiar with the meeting. He read from notes to make obvious points, paused for extended periods and sometimes closed his eyes for so long that some in the room wondered whether he had tuned out.
We should always, of course, be wary of relying on “people familiar with…” As we saw during the Trump presidency, that was too often a smokescreen for journalists just pulling their own opinions out of their arses.
In this case, though, we not only have the legal opinion that Biden is too old and forgetful to face a criminal trial over mishandling classified documents (though that hasn’t stopped the Dems pursuing Donald Trump, just a few years younger than Biden, for the same thing). There are also people willing to put their name to their claims.
There’s House Speaker Mike Johnson, for instance, and his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. “I used to meet with him when he was vice president. I’d go to his house,” McCarthy says. “He’s not the same person.”
The 81-year-old Biden is the oldest person to hold the presidency. His age and cognitive fitness have become major issues in his campaign for a second term, both in the minds of voters and in attacks on him by Republicans […]
For much of his career, Biden enjoyed a reputation on Capitol Hill for being a master negotiator of legislative deals, known for his detailed knowledge of issues and insights into the other side’s motivations and needs – and for hitting his stride when the pressure was on. Over the past year, though, with Republicans in control of the House, that reputation has diminished.
There is also no doubt that at least some of Biden’s gaffes are due to a speech impediment that he, to his credit, worked hard to overcome. Just as Donald Trump’s speeches exhibit an almost-ADHD-like ability to whiz confusingly from subject to subject, often with no obvious connection. But more and more, lately, Biden has been wandering off into obvious dementia.
The worry at Dem HQ is made obvious by the fact that the White House clearly kept close tabs on the Wall Street Journal’s interviews with the Democrats among the 45+ people they interviewed about Joe Biden’s mental acuity. Several of the Democrats got back to the WSJ to emphasis Biden’s ability.
“They just, you know, said that I should give you a call back,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat, referring to the White House.
But people are noticing. People who vote.
In a March Wall Street Journal survey of voters in seven battleground states, just 28 per cent said Biden was better suited physically and mentally for the presidency, while 48 per cent picked Trump.
Just in case, though, the Democrats seem to be reverting to 2020’s strategy of squirrelling Biden away from the public gaze.
Americans have had minimal opportunities to see Biden in unscripted moments. By the end of April, he had given fewer interviews and press conferences than any of his recent predecessors, according to data collected by Martha Joynt Kumar, an emeritus professor at Towson University. His last wide-ranging town-hall-style meeting with an independent news outlet was in October 2021.
He has had fewer small meetings with politicians as his term has gone on, visitor logs show. During his first year in office, even with pandemic restrictions, he held more than three dozen meetings of fewer than 20 politicians in the West Wing. That number fell to roughly two dozen in his second year, and about a dozen in his third year.
A January meeting over Ukraine proved especially worrisome for those in attendance.
The president moved so slowly around the Cabinet Room to greet the nearly two dozen congressional leaders that it took about 10 minutes for the meeting to begin, some people who attended recalled […]
Some attendees had trouble hearing him.
Biden deferred so frequently to other politicians that much of the conversation didn’t include him, some people who attended the meeting recalled. When questions came directly to him, he would turn to staffers, they said.
“You couldn’t be there and not feel uncomfortable,” said one person who attended. “I’ll just say that.”
Still, Dems insist he was “strong, forceful and decisive”. Republicans disagree.
“What you see on TV is what you get,” said Sen. James E. Risch, an Idaho Republican, who attended the meeting but shared only his general impression of meetings with Biden. “These people who keep talking about what a dynamo he is behind closed doors – they need to get him out from behind closed doors, because I didn’t see it.”
The Australian
What Americans are seeing on their TVs is a president who falls down stairs, wanders from the podium to shake hands with people who aren’t there and delivers rambling monologues that make Grandpa Simpson sound like Oscar Wilde.
