On August 3, 2022, Jackie Walorski, a congresswoman from Indiana, was one of four people tragically killed in a head-on collision. Despite her being a Republican, Joe Biden issued an official statement about his and Jill’s shock and sadness at her untimely passing. Then, today, Joe Biden stood at a podium and tried to find Walorski in a crowd. Later, his official spokesmoron tried to make this appear normal.

It makes headlines when a sitting congressperson dies unexpectedly, especially when it happens during a deadly car accident that kills her two young aides and the other driver. No wonder, then, that Biden immediately issued a statement upon learning of Rep. Walorski’s death. It’s a nice statement, too:

Jill and I are shocked and saddened by the death of Congresswoman Jackie Walorski of Indiana along with two members of her staff in a car accident today in Indiana.

Born in her beloved South Bend as the daughter of a meat-cutter and firefighter, she spent a lifetime serving the community that she grew up in – as a journalist, a nonprofit director, a state legislator, and eventually as a Member of Congress for the past nine and half years.

We may have represented different parties and disagreed on many issues, but she was respected by members of both parties for her work on the House Ways and Means Committee on which she served. She also served as co-chair of the House Hunger Caucus, and my team and I appreciated her partnership as we plan for a historic White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health this fall that will be marked by her deep care for the needs of rural America. (Emphasis added.)

Image: Glitchy Joe Biden. Twitter screen grab (edited).

You can read the rest here. Summed up: A person whom Biden had known personally died in a sadly memorable way, and Biden officially noticed her passing.

The White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health took place today. Biden was there to open the conference and decided to honor the people who had been working on the project...including Jackie Walorski:

"Jackie are you here? Where's Jackie?"

Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-IN) died in a car accident in August pic.twitter.com/cHc3b7zPmE

— Charlie Spiering (@charliespiering) September 28, 2022

Did you note that bit at the end? He didn’t catch himself and say something about Walorski’s untimely passing. Instead, he mumbled, “I guess she must not be here.” Well, at least he got that right—and I guess we should be happy that he didn’t say something along the lines of “I see dead people.” After such a troubling show of confusion, it was inevitable that someone in the press would ask what happened. Karine Jean-Pierre’s answer was less than comforting:

Reporter: "What happened when Biden said where is Jackie Walorski?"

Jean-Pierre: "The president was acknowledging her incredible work."

Reporter: "He said 'Jackie, Jackie, where is Jackie?'"

Jean-Pierre: "She was clearly on top of his mind." pic.twitter.com/y1TljVg1BW

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) September 28, 2022

“She was clearly on top of his mind.” That was obvious to all. What’s troubling is that Biden seems to have no memory of the fact that the woman on top of his mind has died, something that was not inconsequential but was, instead, headline news when it happened.

As we get older, we do get memory glitches. However, it’s not a glitch when someone erases entirely a memorable event. That’s a manifestation of dementia (a word that has its roots in the Latin for loss of the mind). Biden had lost that part of his mind in which Walorski’s death should have resided.

I called Jean-Pierre a spokesmoron, which was unkind. The reality is that I find her an exceptionally stupid woman and I believe she was chosen as press secretary for that reason. A smarter person would have tried harder to spin what happened and made things worse. When it comes to Jean-Pierre, we expect nothing more from her, which allows her huge latitude in offering non-responsive, inane, and dishonest answers to serious questions.