Earlier today I saw a clip of Biden answering a question from reporters. He fumbled and looked a little lost. Then a call came from someone in his team — off screen — terminating the session.
I didn’t like it.
It gave the impression that Biden was being managed.
This may have happened before but it took this instance for me to more carefully consider the voices that have advised against his running for a second term.
The President is now 80 and will be a year older on November 20th.
I have been a supporter and defend his desire to run again but if the body and mental acuity are not there, then he should not.
I have stated before that this man loves what he does and I think he’s done a solid job as President. But love alone, for all its force, may not be enough.
People don’t age similarly. There are 80 year olds with very sharp minds. But Biden didn’t look sharp.
The demands on a President are enormous. And it could be that those pressures are accelerating the mental decline.
This, then, is the time for Biden to step up and say to the nation, ‘there are doubts about my ability to function as President, so I will ask a team of experts — non partisan — to test me and determine what is my present mental capacity. Do they see evidence of me having trouble processing information and most crucially, of making sound judgments? I will submit to such testing because I want the best for this country.’
This would not be a personality test but strictly a test of intellectual capacity.
So what if he took the test and came up short on some measures?
He should step down and let Harris take over.
All other Democratic pretenders should then crank up their campaigns and challenge Harris.
And may the best person win.
As time goes by, the burden of pressures on Biden won’t lessen but increase.
Given that the issue of his age is being hotly debated, it should come from him to put it to rest.
It is the right thing to do.
As to Trump, any democratic candidate will be able to beat him, should the Republican party choose him as their nominee, which I doubt.
The results of the testing could surprise us. They could come back saying, ‘Biden is having no difficulty with his mental processing. He can handle the job.’ Then the matter would be put to rest.
Our tests accurate? They are.
If the president passes the cognitive test, he could say, ‘so what if I stumble here and there, my mind is in good shape for…
