Has President Biden become so senile that he is now longer qualified to be commander-in-chief?  The outward signs of dementia are everywhere.  He often appears confused, unsure of his next move, and unable to remember his speech.  Key political terms such as the "national debt" are improperly used, while his memory lapses include falsely claiming to have observed an event or declaring a climate emergency.  Even the Washington Post has raised serious doubts about the president's mental acuity.  Off-the-cuff remarks sometimes make no sense whatsoever.  Such incidents have become commonplace and cannot be explained by slips of the tongue or fatigue. 

Nevertheless, the outward signs of dementia — confused mumbling, forgetfulness and the like — do not necessarily prove incompetence.  A clear-cut diagnosis requires a specific medical exam, but it is unlikely that President Biden would volunteer for this test.  Moreover, Biden's impairment is only what is publicly visible, and actions taken outside the public limelight may be more competent.

The public/private dichotomy is hardly unusual.  Casey Stengel, the legendary New York Yankees manager who won 10 American League championships and seven World Series, held press conferences filled with his rambling commentary (he was nicknamed "The Ol' Professor").  President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1968) occasionally seemed confused when quizzed by the press, but this merely reflected his habit of obscuring sensitive military information.

The key question, then, is whether President Biden's dementia-appearing outward behavior signifies a serious threat.

Matters are further complicated since all politicians occasionally act foolishly despite being of perfectly sound mind.  President John F. Kennedy mired the United States in the disastrous war in Vietnam, yet nobody hinted that this reflected his addled brain.  Was President's Biden's sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan a reflection of age-related cognitive impairment or run-of-the-mill miscalculations based on bad military advice?  Hard to say, yet such questions must be answered prior to rendering a senility diagnosis.

In other words, there must be a smoking-gun act that proves mental incompetence with the president's fingerprints all over it, less a disaster cooked up by multiple advisers such as the Green New Deal: not exactly smoking-gun proof, but a warm barrel and the smell of gunpowder in the air.

Exhibit A of President Biden's mental unfitness for office is a recent executive order to advance diversity, inclusion, and equity in the federal workforce.  It aspires to transform the federal civil service, top to bottom.  In the president's words, "even with decades of progress building a federal workforce that looks like America, the enduring legacies of employment discrimination, systemic racism, and gender inequality are still felt today."  The directive will replace a system based on demonstrated merit with employment based on outward traits having zero to do with objective competence.  It will be a sweeping effort, since the president will direct the Office of Personnel Management and the Office of Management and Budget together with and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to alter the basic ways millions of public officials are hired and promoted.

The initiative will also be comprehensive in terms of the new criteria for federal employment.  To wit, it will provide an extra advantage to "people of color; women; first-generation professionals and immigrants; individuals with disabilities; LGBTQ individuals; Americans who live in rural areas; older Americans who face age discrimination when seeking employment; parents and caregivers who face employment barriers; people of faith who require religious accommodations at work; individuals who were formerly incarcerated; and veterans and military spouses."  This is a revolutionary transformation.

Put concretely, the millions of federal employees who certify drugs as safe and effective, enforce federal laws, ensure the safety of public transportation, collect taxes, run the national parks, enforce labor laws, help fund education, and on and on will be selected according to such criteria as their religion, their spouse's employment, or disability, among multiple other traits.  If implemented, it would end the civil service and return America to the early 19th century with the political cronyism-based spoils system.  Now, for example, the safety of a new airliner might be certified by someone whose chief qualification is his bisexuality or previous incarceration.

Disastrous consequences are hardly hypothetical.  This approach to filling government positions is exactly what makes a third-world country a third-world country.  Nothing works, or barely so, thanks to incompetent government functionaries owing their jobs to tribal membership, nepotism, bribery, and similar "qualifications" unrelated to merit.  This is why millions flee to the U.S. — things don't work in their homeland.  Even the water is often undrinkable, and the roads are impassable.  The president's executive order might be more accurately called "Let's Make America a Third-World Country."

The smoking-gun evidence for dementia here is the missive's obvious crackpot nature, an example of identity politics run amok.  Does the president honestly believe that the Department of Defense will work better if its workforce better resembles the general population?  Will planes fly on schedule if we hire more LGBT identifiers or senior citizens as air traffic controllers?  This is delusional thinking, and one can only wonder why a sensible adviser did not counsel the president not to sign it.

Equally important, the order unambiguously violates numerous anti-discrimination and civil rights laws and will surely invite litigation that will invalidate it.  These lawsuits would number in the tens of thousands and not only paralyze the legal system, but stop all federal hiring due to legal uncertainty.  No more park rangers will be hired until the courts decide if a job applicant claiming to be victimized by systemic racism can be put at the front of the line.  If these mandates are declared illegal — highly likely — the federal government may be liable for billions in compensation to white males who lost their jobs to recently protected minorities.

A Marx Brothers–like comic opera quality surrounds this executive order.  One can picture the president racking his brain for yet new categories of people who need a leg up when applying for federal jobs or a promotion.  What if an adviser tongue-in-cheek suggested, "What about the transgendered or illegal migrants, Mr. President?"  Another chimes in, "What about the fat, short, and ugly?," and Biden nods in agreement.  The list of possibilities is endless.

The good news is that all this will unlikely come to pass, and such blatant pandering will hardly energize millions of potential supporters.  It will be forgotten and yet one more hare-brained idea issuing from a reality-challenged president notable for garbling facts and inventing alternative universes.  President Biden may also be gone long before this reversible order can be implemented.

But such consolations should not obscure the seriousness of the problem.  This is madness, and his civil service proposal may be only one of many dangerous schemes currently hidden from public view.  And such mental illness will only grow worse if he is re-elected.

The order also raises the possibility of the president being manipulated by radical ideologues.  This, too, strengthens the case that he is no longer mentally fit for the job.  Instances of people of Biden's age being fooled by con men abound.  We are not a government of puppeteers.

Time to confront the issue and seriously consider the 25th Amendment.

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.