What an outstanding opinion piece by Becket Adams on the looming question that the American Press Corps is trying to avoid – “Is Joe Biden ok?” Obviously, the answer is, “No.” Adams details a fraction of the evidence of that self-evident reality. He argues the Press has a responsibility to dig into this major issue facing the nation. Kudos to him for having the honesty to raise the question the Biden-loving biased Media won’t ask. Be sure and head to The Hill to read the entire piece. . . .
Speaking to reporters Wednesday, President Biden falsely claimed that Russia is at war with Iraq. Russia is at war with Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is “clearly losing the war in Iraq,” Biden told the press pool, “losing the war at home. And he has become a bit of a pariah around the world.”
On Tuesday, during an unrelated fundraising event in Chevy Chase, Md., Biden made the exact same slip-up, mistaking Ukraine for Iraq.“If anybody told you … that we’d be able to bring all of Europe together in the onslaught on Iraq and get NATO to be completely united,” the president said, “I think they would have told you it’s not likely.”
Although many journalists did a fine job this week highlighting the president’s apparent confusion regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one can’t help but feel as if the news industry as a whole is avoiding the obvious follow-up question. Namely, “Is Biden OK?”It’s not an unfair question, either, considering the Iraq/Ukraine gaffes were not an isolated series of incidents. They are simply the latest in a string of bizarre, confused and mostly unintelligible statements from Biden in the much longer string of bizarre, confused and mostly unintelligible statements that have come to define the Biden presidency.
“We have plans to build a railroad from the Pacific all the way across the Indian Ocean,” the president said this month during an address before the League of Conservation Voters.
There is no such plan, of course, to build a railroad from the Pacific coast to the Indian Ocean. According to his White House handlers, the president was referring to a plan that would connect railroads across the African continent, linking ports on the Atlantic Ocean to ports on the Indian Ocean. Atlantic, Pacific. Tomato, tomato. . . .
There’s also the fact that Biden keeps claiming his late son, Beau, died in Iraq. Beau did not die in Iraq. Beau died in Bethesda, Md., six years after returning from a tour of duty in Iraq. . . .
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. . . . .
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. . . . .
THE HILL – Opinion by Becket Adams