Lately, there have been many stories in the media that question Joe Biden’s abilities to fulfill his role. It’s intriguing that those questions are coming now, prior to the midterms. I thought Democrats would wait until after the midterms for the push against him, but it may be starting early because they are so unhappy with Biden’s performance. Democrats are afraid they’re going to get wiped out in the midterms, in some measure because Joe Biden is so bad; he provides no real guidance to the party and doesn’t seem to know how to right the ship of state that he’s left to founder on the rocks.
Now, the NY Times is broaching that third-rail topic — Joe Biden’s advanced age.
Biden was to fly straight to the Middle East from Europe for his meetings. But don’t say he’s going to beg Saudi Arabia for more oil. This will make him mad.
Now instead, he’s leaving on Tuesday night. In the meantime, he’s back in the U.S. for the weekend and at the beach house for the 39th time in his term.
Here’s the NY Times take on how he’s now likely to be “more rested“:
His age, which Mr. Biden has insisted he will run for the second term of office, is increasingly becoming an issue that irritates him, his team, and his party.
He is now more than one year younger than Ronald Reagan at the close of his second term. Biden, who is 86 years old at the time of the election in 2024’s campaign, would ask voters to choose a president who will be older than he would have been at the start of his term. This would put the boundaries of the presidency and age into question. According to polls, many Americans believe Mr. Biden is too senior. However, some Democratic strategists disagree that he should run again.
The West Wing is not surprised that it is a delicate topic. Interviews, whether sanctioned or not, were conducted by more than 12 former and current top officials and advisors. All reported that Biden remains intellectually engaged in asking questions, examining aides for points of disagreement, calling them late into the night, picking out weak points on Pages 14 and revising speeches, such as his Friday abortion statement, right up until the end.
They acknowledged that Mr. Biden is older than he was just a few short years ago. This political problem cannot be fixed by White House strategies like new communication plans or staff changes. Although his energy levels are impressive, he isn’t as energetic for an older man. Some aides keep watch over him. Aids fear he might trip over a wire or shuffle when he walks. They wait to see how he does at public events.
The third paragraph of the quote is a bunch of malarkey; it’s the last paragraph that’s the money paragraph. They’re holding their breath every time he talks and he can’t take a 10-day work trip, without returning to Delaware to rest and do whatever it is they do to try to enliven him there. Of course, we’ve been saying this since before he got into office. Why are they now acknowledging it? What trouble does this man have for us all?
Although White House officials insist they make no special accommodations the way Reagan’s team did, privately they try to guard Mr. Biden’s weekends in Delaware as much as possible. He is generally a five- or five-and-a-half-day-a-week president, although there are times when he is called at any hour regardless of the day. He remains out of the public eye at night. His participation in interviews and news conferences is less than his previous predecessors.
Are you able to see your room at night but not the baby? It means nappy and an early lid at 3 p.m.
The NY Times acknowledges there have been some issues with Biden and that 64 percent of American voters believe he’s too old to be in the office.
Mr. Biden’s public appearances have fueled that perception. Sometimes his speeches are stale and rambling. Sometimes he loses his way, struggles to summon names or seems confused. More than once, he has promoted Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her “President Harris.” Mr. Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter, stumbles over words like “kleptocracy.” He has said Iranian when he meant Ukrainian and several times called Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, “John,” confusing him with the late Republican senator of that name from Virginia.
Guys, he’s reading the teleprompter instructions now, without even realizing it.
Although it’s Republicans pouncing.
Republicans and the conservative media love to highlight these moments by posting viral videos. Sometimes, they exaggerate and distort Mr. Biden’s appearance. But the White House has had to walk back some of his ad-libbed comments, such as when he vowed a military response if China attacks Taiwan or declared that President Vladimir V. Putin “cannot remain in power” in Russia.
His people are always trying to keep him away from the press (you don’t say, I think I’ve heard that somewhere) and they’re manic about COVID.
However, aides take precautions not to expose him to the coronavirus. Each week, aides undergo a test and are required to wear colored wristbands. However, if they have plans to visit the President on another day they need also be tested and must wear N95 masks.
Unscripted conversations with news media are not something that the White House isn’t trying to protect. Only 16 news conferences have been held since he took office. This is less than the total number that Mr. Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and George W. Bush attended by this stage. It’s also less than three times as many, and less as than Bill Clinton and George H.W. Martha Joynt Kumar is a historian of presidential media strategies and Bush was one of them, she said.
Also, only 38 interviews have been given by Mr. Biden, which is far less than the 116, Mr. Obama (198) and younger, Mr. Bush (71) as well as Mr. Clinton (75), and Mr. Bush (86) respectively. Informally answering questions following speeches and other events has proven to be more convenient for Mr. Biden (290 times versus 213 by Donald Trump and 64 by Barack Obama).
The Times phrased the way that the other leaders treated him at the G-7 as the way people treat a “distinguished elderly relative.”
“At a photo opportunity, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany gently pointed Mr. Biden in the direction of the cameras.” When Biden seemed to have no idea what was going on, when all the other leaders did.
What’s the bottom line? Even the Times is now laying out what we’ve known for a long time — that Biden is not up to the job, Biden’s team knows it, and they’re doing all they can to cover.
This has consequences: from the embarrassing — with world leaders realizing he’s limited when they have to help him — to the shameful, when he can’t respond to the assassination of a significant world leader like Shinzo Abe for about eight hours after the incident.
Some — like Iowa Law School professor Derek Muller — have called for age limits. Maybe. Although I don’t like these limits, we can see that they have been a problem for Congress. This is despite the fact that Congress positions aren’t meant to last a lifetime. But in the case of Joe Biden, it’s not just age and incapacity. Joe is incompetent since his youth. The Democrats recognized this but nevertheless pushed for Joe to be in his current position because they believed power was more important than safety.
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