Politico: Democrats Should Support a Primary of Biden, So That He Can Prove He's Up to the Job of Being President

Via John Sexton at Hot Air, a liberal writer comes out against the planned Basement Campaign 2.0, and protecting the mental and physical invalid from having to speak and debate in public.

President Joe Biden needs a tuneup. He's a stiff when speaking at the lectern. When not a stiff, the 80-year-old can be a dolt, saying, as he did this week, that Russian President Vladimir Putin is "losing the war in Iraq" when he meant Ukraine, or blurting out a senseless, "God save the Queen, man," at a gun control rally last week. The English language has never been his friend, so it's logical that his managers, er, his aides, have limited his exposure to the press. No president since the equally doddering Ronald Reagan has held so few press conferences. Not since Ray Leonard's ill-advised third comeback has a contestant seemed so out of condition for a big rumble...

With a tepid approval rating that puts him near to Donald Trump at his worst, Biden needs a primary opponent who can prepare him for the 2024 general election, somebody who can make him prove that he can still run the traps and beat whichever Republican he faces. If Biden can't vanquish a worthy Democrat in primary season, he has no business entering the general...

...the onus should be on Biden to prove he's mentally and physically nimble enough to do the job for another term before he's allowed to run against the best the Republicans have to offer. Say what you will about Trump, who just turned 77, but he seems as competent (read that however you wish) as he was in 2016.

This opinion piece is a pack of lies. The author, Jack Shaefer, knows full well that Biden is not mentally or physically fit to be present. He can barely "talk straight," as Joe Rogan said.

But he's not allowed by his fellow Democrats to say that, so he was to cast his support of a primary as capable of giving a "tune-up" to Biden's dying brain.

Becket Adams in The Hill: We need to have a serious conversation about Joe Biden's much-degraded brain.

After noting the Great Mangler's many false claims, garbled sentences, embarrassing lapses of memory, and bursts of straight-up Olden Times frontier gibberish, Adams calls for a National Conversation About Biden's Rotten Brain.

This isn't just about whether Biden has the stuff to finish this term, let alone serve a second one. This is also about why we in the media aren't having a more robust debate regarding Biden's mental acuity. The apparent lack of interest in the matter certainly feels like a change of pace for an industry that historically hasn't shied from the issue.

During the Trump years, for example, there was no shortage of coverage and commentary questioning the president's physical and mental fitness. In those years, there were three parts to every sentence published by the press: A noun, a verb, and "Is Donald Trump insane?"

Psychiatrists became cable news famous overnight simply for their willingness to leverage their credentials against Trump. Earlier, when then-Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) ran for president in 2008, a popular newsroom theme at the time was, "Is he too old?" Then, there was former President George W. Bush, whose lifelong battle with the English language became so much fodder for media speculation and late-night jocularity. Lastly, of course, there's former President Reagan, whose administration was dogged by the press's persistent questions regarding whether his brain had finally turned to mashed potatoes.

Fast-forward to 2023, and we see the current president confuse basic world events, praise rail projects that don't exist, mourn war casualties that aren't real, wander around stages and TV sets as if he is lost and struggle to make it through speaking engagements without getting flustered or exhausted. Yet, despite the press's normal reflex to ask whether the president is up to the demands of the office, we in the media have responded to Biden's bizarre presidency with little more than a bored shrug.

The point here isn't to highlight the press's treatment of past presidents and presidential hopefuls, to shout "hypocrisy!" Rather, it's to state that the public deserves to know whether Biden is capable of performing the bare minimum required of his office. If anything falls under the heading of "public interest," this is surely it. And yet the broader press, the industry tasked with asking and exploring this question, has staked out a position of casual indifference.

But if ever there was a time to snap back to attention, to engage on the issue of "presidential fitness," this is it. There's a presidential election just around the corner. The time to get serious about "fitness," and to address it fairly and seriously, is now. Not for the sake of the media's credibility, but for the sake of the public, which has every right to know whether the leading candidates for president are actually capable of carrying out their duties.

posted by Lamont the Big Dummy at 02:50 PM

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