By Jeff Charles | Townhall.com
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
An explosive new Wall Street Journal has exposed what most Americans already knew: President Joe Biden’s mental faculties have declined considerably, and the White House lied about it for his entire term in office.
The report details how members of the Biden administration were forced to adapt to the president’s advanced age and cognitive decline. It revealed a tightly managed operation to restrict access to him and meticulously manage his public appearances and interactions. The objective was to prevent the public from seeing his apparent weaknesses as president.
Biden’s staff designed a highly insulated system to limit his exposure to outsiders – including members of Congress and the media. His senior advisers acted as intermediaries and gatekeepers, ensuring that meetings were short and focused so the president would not lose track of the conversation.
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and National Economic Council head Lael Brainard frequently acted as proxies for Biden during important policy discussions. “Senior advisers were often put into roles that some administration officials and lawmakers thought Biden should occupy,” the report noted.
In many cases, “If the president was having an off day, meetings could be scrapped altogether,” according to the report.
The structure was also designed to prevent Biden, an undisciplined public speaker throughout his half-century political career, from making gaffes or missteps that could damage his image, create political headaches or upset the world order.
The Wall Street Journal noted how this system “put Biden at an unusual remove from cabinet secretaries, the chairs of congressional committees and other high-ranking officials.”
The president’s advanced age had a severe impact on his ability to meet the physical and mental demands of the presidency, the report highlighted. Staff had to adjust his schedule to accommodate his declining stamina, often delaying meetings to later in the day and keeping interactions as brief as possible.
Even though his staff took these actions to conceal his cognitive issues, his public appearances betrayed apparent inconsistencies in his memory and energy levels. “He has good days and bad days, and today was a bad day so we’re going to address this tomorrow,” a former national security official told the Wall Street Journal.
The report noted how “aides often repeated instructions to him, such as where to enter or exit a stage, that would be obvious to the average person.”
The charade was finally destroyed when Biden debated President-elect Donald Trump during the 2024 campaign.
Biden’s debate with Donald Trump on June 27 made his mental acuity an insurmountable issue. Much of the Democratic establishment had accepted the White House line that Biden was able to take the fight to Trump, even in the face of direct evidence to the contrary.
When Biden tanked in his performance against Trump, it was no longer possible to deceive the public into believing he was still fit for the job of president. This revelation prompted prominent Democrats to call on Biden to drop out of the race, which eventually happened.
Some suggested that Biden’s refusal to exit the race earlier and give another candidate a chance to take up the mantle was instrumental in bringing about the Democrats’ heavy losses on Election Day. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) criticized Biden for immediately endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his successor instead of allowing for a primary process. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” she told The New York Times.
As much as I hate to say it, Pelosi is 100 percent correct, as are others who said Biden shouldn’t have bothered to run for a second term. While the president’s cognitive issues were apparent to those who actively follow politics, it appears his team still had a considerable portion of the voting public fooled – until that disastrous debate performance.
The Democrats’ second mistake was rallying behind Kamala Harris, one of the worst presidential candidates in history. There was absolutely no way she could hope to defeat Trump in a fair fight, so to speak. But even with the Democrats using the justice system to prosecute the president-elect to influence the outcome of the election, the public could not stomach the idea of a Harris administration that would have been more of the same. After all, we know the definition of insanity, right?
