The Interview

I watched the ABC exclusive interview with Joe Biden and he looked fully in control of his faculties, if that is that main takeaway.  He wasn't as articulate as I would like him to be but I could see he was fighting off his frustration with George Stephanopoulus's line of questioning, in which he continually harped on the president's state of mind as if conducting a cognitive test himself.

It made me think of a foreign service test I once took.  It was here in Vilnius.  The first two sections were easy enough as they tested my language skills and general knowledge but what threw me was the biographical questionnaire.  It was set up like a lie detector test in which the same questions were repeated with slightly different phrasing to see if I was being honest.  There were also little comment sections at the end of most of the questions where I presume I could expand my answer if I chose to.  It was part self-assessment of my office and personal relationships and part exploration into my personal interests.  I grew increasingly agitated by the repeated questions, in part because how am I supposed to assess what my friends and colleagues think of me, and also why I need to tell the Foreign Service what books I read the past 6 months.  Agitation grew to anger, especially as the section had a time limit and I was circling back through the questions to make sure I didn't contradict myself.  Finally, I just gave up and expressed in no uncertain terms what I thought of this section.

I would never become a foreign service officer, much less a president, because I hate to be pressed, especially when it comes to explaining myself.  In this sense, I was very much impressed with Joe Biden's restraint.  I would have been much more surly with George than he was.  I might have just ended the interview at the 12-minute mark when he asked the president for the fourth or fifth time if he would submit himself to an independent cognitive test.  Joe kept his cool, in part because he knew this would be George's line of questioning, but also because he knows how to control his temper in public.  A major prerequisite for any leader, not just president.

At the halfway mark of the interview, ABC noted that they had offered Donald Trump a similar opportunity but he declined.  In fact, Donald Trump has not sat down for an interview with any major mainstream news outlet while on the campaign trail.  What we have gotten instead are daily screeds on his social media site and his impromptu "press conferences" during his New York trial.  He doesn't take questions and when challenged is very surly in his responses to put it mildly.

Yet, we are repeatedly told it is Joe's cognitive abilities we should be worried about.  The New York Times has repeatedly questioned the president's ability to lead, even going so far as to conduct its own version of cognitive tests by asking neuroscientists to weigh in on Biden's mental health.  To be fair, the NYTimes has long questioned Trump's cognitive abilities, but the stress on Biden this close to the election makes me wonder what is the intention here?

I suppose it is partly to pressure the Democratic Party into confronting Biden and asking him to step down in favor of a younger candidate.  Everyone knows Trump won't step down, so the only hope we have for a younger candidate in the 2024 general election is a Democrat, as their convention is more than a month away.  So, the Times and other major news outlets paint a picture of all this dissent in the Democratic ranks hoping to stir up just enough concern that Biden will kindly remove himself from the race like a genteel old man who knows his time is up.

Stephanopolous repeatedly referred to the NYTimes in his interview.  Biden would almost grimace each time as there has been a running feud between the Times and the White House throughout his tenure.  Joe dismissed the Times polls, their neurological findings and their belief that there is all this dissention in the Democratic ranks.  He noted his recent meeting with Democratic governors, his frequent meetings with Schumer, Jeffries, Pelosi and Clyburn.  He has every intention of staying in the race and no major Democratic leader is suggesting he step aside.

However, The news media is in the business of forecasting political races.  They see elections as a "horse race," offering handicaps along the way in the form of polls that essentially provide betting odds on the outcome of these races.  If you're curious, Action actually provides betting odds with Kamala Harris polling slightly ahead of Biden at this point with both of them badly trailing Donald Trump.  Michelle Obama is the proverbial "dark horse" at +1000.  Nate Silver's 538 does the same thing, even showing polls with Michelle Obama as a Democratic alternative.  It is enticing to think of her as a possible candidate as she polls well ahead of Trump, whereas Joe and Kamala continue to trail the Orange King in one-on-one polls.

Biden was quick to point out in 2022 that Nate and other political prognosticators predicted a "red tsunami" in the midterms only for the Democrats to gain a seat in the Senate and virtually split the House.  Our fearless prognosticators had not taken into account how much the Supreme Court's reversal of Roe v. Wade weighed on the public mind.  They thought voters were mostly concerned with the rising inflation that year.  Instead, voters were more concerned that their individual rights were being systematically stripped by the conservative-led Court and voted for Democrats in a resounding rebuttal to judicial decisions that year.

We may very well see a similar backlash to the USSC decision to give the president "official immunity," bringing the matter of character to the fore.  If a president is going to have any sort of immunity from criminal prosecution then it becomes incumbent that the president be of high moral and ethical fiber.  Can anyone honestly say Donald Trump exhibits these traits?

Biden made sure to note that Trump is a pathological liar and that this is what threw him off at the debates.  Even when Donald's mic was turned off, he was still trying to shout over Biden on stage.  Whether it came natural to Trump or was part of his strategy to rattle Joe is anyone's guess, but it would be very disconcerting to try to form coherent responses to the questions when you have a guy like this yelling into your ear.

As we saw in the interview, Biden pauses a lot as he forms a response to the question.  He doesn't shout the first thing off the top of his head.  With age, those pauses have become longer and I'm sure the expert neurologists in the viewing audience will say that this is the first sign of diminishing cognitive abilities.  What I see is a thoughtful man who is trying to phrase his answers in a congenial way.  Whenever Joe rushes an answer it comes out somewhat garbled, as he fights to overcome his lifelong stammer.

Yet, the consensus media opinion remains that Biden is being shielded by his wife and press handlers.  That what we see in these brief glimpses is a man in serious mental decline and that his wife and staff are not being honest with us.  

I suppose they are shielding him to a certain degree because I imagine they get an earful from Joe after these debates and interviews.  I have to think he needs to vent after holding himself in like that.  From various accounts, Joe has quite a temper in private.  I guess that's when "Dark Brandon" comes out.  Unlike Trump, he knows he has to contain himself in public as so much is riding on his decisions and his demeanor.

Joe tried to highlight the successes of his administration but George wasn't too interested in that.  Stephanopoulus said at one point that it is the future that Americans are concerned about, not what you have done in the past.  To Joe's credit he was quick to point out the recent Supreme Court decision to grant the president official immunity.  This requires a man of character leading the country, not a pathological liar, to paraphrase the president.

In the end, that is our choice in November.  Do we take a man who is old and a bit slow but you know has the best interests of Americans in mind, or do we take a man who is old and slow and has only his self interests in mind.  Joe made it clear which old man he is.  Now it is America's turn to decide.