Friday, May 23, 2025
Democrats, and indeed the whole political system, have been roiled by continuing controversy about former President Joe Biden’s mental and physical health during his presidency. Indeed, a root cause of this situation is related to the extremely polarized nature of American media and politics.
I guess you have to start in 2020. Since Mr. Biden was born in 1942, and thus was nearing 78 years old, it was pretty much inevitable that his fitness for office would be called into question when he ran for president in that year.
Nevertheless, that issue was largely out of sight when he won the Democratic nomination in 2020 and campaigned for office. The Covid crisis was at its height, and it did not seem necessary, or particularly desirable for a presidential candidate to make numerous public appearances or to run a particularly strenuous race.
Indeed, Mr. Biden’s opponent, President Donald Trump, who largely relied on big rallies to make his case, was at a distinct disadvantage when he was forced to limit his options. Mr. Biden was able to rely on a very limited number of appearances, and two reasonably creditable debate performances. And despite this rather flaccid run and being accused of mainly campaigning from his basement, public unhappiness with Mr. Trump (and particularly his handling of Covid), allowed Mr. Biden to prevail.
In the early years of the Biden Administration, the president kept short hours at work and spent long weekends at the beach and there was the occasional stumble, fall or inappropriate statement, but no gaffe attracted lengthy national attention. Nevertheless, by the summer of 2022, a New York Times poll found that 61 percent of Democratic voters favored a new nominee, most citing Mr. Biden’s age as the main concern. Still, Mr. Biden felt vindicated by the Democrats’ relatively good performance in the midterms and announced a reelection bid in April 2023.
However, by 2024, it was becoming increasingly apparent that Mr. Biden was not up to the job. Robert Hur, a special prosecutor investigating Mr. Biden’s document retention practices, declined prosecution because Mr. Biden would be able to present himself to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory” . A well sourced Wall Street Journal article stated that Mr. Biden was “showing signs of slipping”. Mr. Biden was frequently seen in videos as meandering during public appearances. Actor George Clooney said that Mr. Biden showed signs of age during a fundraiser.
But most of all, Mr. Biden was forced to change political course on account of a drastically bad performance in a debate against Donald Trump on June 27, when Mr. Biden spoke in a weak hoarse voice and repeatedly lost his train of thought. On July 21, he announced he was not running.
While it is perhaps to be expected that senior members of the Biden Administration, and other Democratic leaders, would be reluctant to expose Mr. Biden’s infirmities and raise questions about his fitness for office, the same should not have been true of the news media.
But key elements of the mainstream media, likely motivated by a fear of helping Donald Trump, basically buried concerns about Mr. Biden. Even before the 2020 election, questions about his seeming cognitive difficulties were dismissed as demonstrating bias against someone who stuttered. Videos of Mr. Biden wandering off or acting inappropriate were dismissed as deepfakes or cheapfakes. The well sourced Wall Street Journal article on the President’s problems was generally derided. Special prosecutor Hur was accused of Republican bias. A Democratic candidate, Dean Phillips, who emphasized Mr. Biden’s infirmities, was ignored. Only after Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance did much of the media seem at all interested in the competence issue.
Yes, there are right leaning media segments that reflexively defend Donald Trump. Nevertheless, even in this polarized atmosphere, it will take a long time to regain the public trust for media outlets that seemed to shove aside the crucial truth about President Biden.
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