The mental acuity of the joke that currently occupies the Bully Pulpit arose in February, when special counsel Robert Hur released his report concerning Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents.  Hur’s investigation found that Biden had, on numerous occasions, illegally mishandled classified documents.  Furthermore, “during his [Biden’s] interview with Hur, the special counsel wrote that the president was confused about the timeline of events and was unable to ascertain questions about his time as vice president.” 

It continued in March, with Brit Hume saying, “I was saying back when it was not at all fashionable to say it, that he [Biden] is senile.  And now I think he is palpably senile and the country sees it.”

Liz Peek wrote in March that “Joe Biden is a danger to the United States.”  When in Poland, Biden said, “For God’s sake, this man [Vladimir Putin] cannot remain in power.”  Biden’s statement, according to Peek, sounded like a threat, and that’s exactly how the Russians heard it.  Putin’s propagandists produced videos of Biden advocating regime change.  “They don’t even need to doctor the films.”   

Peek wrote in May that “Joe Biden’s ‘gaffes’ are a danger to Americans.”  Addressing a foreign audience without his Teleprompter, Biden wandered off-script, committing the U.S. to a military response if China invades Taiwan.

To reinforce Peek’s assertions, Bobby Eberely’s article for GOPUSA states that “Joe Biden has a habit of making gaffes, and the media just ignore them.  However, when those gaffes completely change U.S. foreign policy regarding Russia, Ukraine, and Putin, world leaders begin to take notice.  How much longer can this go on?”

Biden granted a rare one-on-one interview in May with CNN’s Erin Burnett.  It took place in the pivotal battleground state of Wisconsin, where Biden planed to showcase his agenda for boosting manufacturing and technology jobs in the Midwest.  Biden appeared “confused” during the interview, rambled on about Israel and the economy, and repeated a claim he made during the SOTU about “shrinkflation” of Snickers bars.  The Mars Company, makers of Snickers, has denied Biden’s claim. 

When asked about Israel, Biden blathered aimlessly and couldn’t stay on one subject.  “If you look at the data, these demonstrations are real but they’re not nearly, I mean, look, and everybody — I made a speech on the Holocaust the other day.” 

When asked about the economy and the fact that inflation had pushed prices up by 18.9% during his watch, and that’s a real day-to-day pain that people feel, Biden responded, “It really is, and it’s real.  But the fact is that people have the money to spend.”

Most recently, The Wall Street Journal published in June an article that reported, “When President Biden met with congressional leaders in the West Wing in January to negotiate a Ukraine funding deal, 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.”

It further reported that in a one-on-one chat with House speaker Mike Johnson, Johnson pointed out that Biden’s hold on liquid-natural-gas export permitting was hurting the country.  Biden said the hold was “just a study.”  Johnson was worried that Biden’s memory had slipped regarding details about his own policy.

When Biden negotiated last year with House Republicans to increase the debt ceiling, then–House speaker Kevin McCarthy observed that his demeanor and command of the details seemed to shift from one day to the next.  “I used to meet with him when he was vice president,” McCarthy said.  “He’s not the same person.”

The New York Post editorial board wrote in June, “Between his constant verbal fumbles, endless wander-offs and bouts of confused aggression, all in public, it’s beyond clear to everyone with eyes and ears that Biden’s been on a steep downslope for months, if not years.” 

Dr. Marc Siegel, a clinical professor at NYU Langone Medical Center, said that there are several known medical issues in Biden’s history: age, a brain aneurysm and repair in 1988, atrial fibrillation, and anticoagulation.  Siegel suggested that these issues increase Biden’s risk of small, silent strokes.  This is important because strokes can cause permanent cognitive decline.  Other symptoms include confusion; trouble speaking; trouble walking; loss of balance or coordination; and problems with thinking, awareness, attention, judgment, and memory.  Biden has exhibited all of these symptoms, so it’s safe to suggest that he’s had, and continues to have, numerous small, silent strokes. 

Dr. Charan Ranganath, professor of psychology and neuroscience and the director of the Dynamic Memory Lab at the University of California, Davis, says, “It is normal to be more forgetful as you get older.  However, age in and of itself doesn’t indicate the presence of memory deficits that would affect an individual’s ability to perform.”  He continued, “Memory scientists would call Biden’s problem ‘retrieval failure’ — the memory is there, but he cannot immediately pull it up in a stressful or immediately pressing context.”

Therein lies the rub.  The president’s job is certainly a stressful or pressing one.  He must always be able to respond immediately to statements made or questions asked by other world leaders. 

There has been pushback from Democrats and the MSM, who are circling the wagons — for good reason.  For example, Biden’s Democrat allies launched an aggressive defense to “diminish the significance of the prosecutor’s [Hur’s] allegations that Biden was too forgetful to be charged for mishandling classified material.”

CNNs Oliver Darcy wrote in his article that “the Wall Street Journal owes its readers — and the public — better.”  The WSJ, he continued, published a story stating that Joe Biden has, “behind closed doors,” shown “signs of slipping.”  The WSJ questioned Biden’s mental acuity, saying the 81-year-old lacks the mental ability to be president.

Darcy said that the WSJ article is incorrect, that close inspection of the article reveals a problem: most of the sources reporters Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes used were Republicans,  and the reporters drew their conclusions based upon Republican sources, who had an incentive to damage Biden.  Darcy wants us to believe him instead of our lying eyes and ears.

But this defense tops them all.  Dr. Paul Newhouse, clinical leader for the Vanderbilt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, said, “There is a type of emotional intelligence and ability to handle many different kinds of experiences in life that come with greater longevity.  People can make decisions more carefully and more rationally.”  Newhouse is simply unbelievable.

Why does Biden’s mental acuity matter?  One major reason is his disastrous foreign policy.  Former Democrat Tulsi Gabbard says he “is playing a ‘game of chicken’ when it comes to a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.”

All we can do is pray that senile Joe Biden doesn’t start a nuclear war before January 20.

Warren Beatty has created a web page that facilitates quick responses and/or comments to anything you consider outrageous: quick-rant.atwebpages.com.

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