Dem
47
GOP
53
Let us start by reminding everyone that: (1) The Wall Street Journal has a pronounced rightward lean, and (2) their articles are behind paywalls, so you can't read this without a subscription. With those caveats out of the way, we'll tell you that the linked article is a pretty well-sourced rundown of Joe Biden's mental state. If it's even halfway true, it's... distressing.
According to the newspaper's reporting, White House insiders not only knew that Biden was slipping, but they knew it during his first year in office (i.e., well before he decided to run for reelection). And so, aggressive steps were allegedly taken to protect him, including scripting most public appearances and keeping one-on-one interactions with members of the Cabinet, and of Congress, to a minimum. Still, the paper claims, the problem could not be hidden entirely, and was particularly noticed during his phone calls with donors, and his prep for various high-profile tasks, like the interview with Robert Hur and the presidential debate.
Again, we are inclined to take this with several grains of salt. There's no doubt that Biden had some bad days, and that those bad days appear to have become more frequent in the last year. However, we are skeptical that his decline began years ago, and that everyone around him knew it. That does not square with his many successful public appearances in his first several years in office, including those where scripts/teleprompters were not an option. It also does not square with his people not only standing by while he announced another presidential bid, but also allowing him to take the stage for that disastrous debate. If they really knew what was going to happen, they would have found a way to keep him from debating.
In short, there's almost certainly some truth there, and some fallacy, and it's hard to be sure where one ends and the other begins. This is not just a presidential problem, either. This week, it was reported that 81-year-old Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) is living with dementia in a memory-care residence in Dallas. She has been there since July and has missed all votes since then. Although Republicans denied that Granger was/is compromised, her son Brandon conceded that she has been "having some dementia issues late in the year." She resigned her position as chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee in March, but it is not known how well she was functioning before she resigned.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) said: "The incapacitation of an elected official is a material fact that should be disclosed to the public, rather than concealed by staff." Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) called for term limits and tweeted that Granger's absence "reveals the problem with a Congress that rewards seniority & relationships more than merit & ideas." An anonymous House Republican was concerned about the fact that Granger's constituents don't have a voice in Congress. The lawmaker said that Congress needs to deal with the age issue. The Representative could have resigned from Congress in July when she moved into the home, but the special election would probably have been called for Nov. 5, denying her constituents representation for 4 months. Of course, de facto, they didn't have representation for those 4 months anyway.
It is one thing for some random backbencher to be living in a memory-case facility 1,200 miles from D.C. and something entirely different for a senior member of one the most powerful committees in Congress to be doing it and having her staff cover it up. Especially when the funding of the government was front and center for months.
And of course, this is not the first time this has happened. It's not even the first time in recent years that it's happened. Dianne Feinstein was clearly incapacitated for a year or more of her final term, only slowly gave up her various posts, and held on to her Senate seat until she died. The people of California, who are arguably underrepresented in the Senate even when everything is working correctly, effectively had only one senator for most or all of 2023. Maybe 2022 and 2021, too.
Nor is this the last time this little problem is going to come up. We think the evidence is overwhelming that Donald Trump's mental state had already deteriorated substantially (the same thing that happened to his father in his eighties, by the way). Imagine where he will be in 3 or 4 years?
Unfortunately, this problem does not appear to have much of a solution. To disqualify officeholders on the some new basis—maximum age, failure to pass a cognitive screening, etc.—would almost certainly require a constitutional amendment, and would be impossible to design so as to be fair and not subject to partisan chicanery. One possible, very slight, improvement might be to scrap Congress' seniority system entirely, and let each committee elect its own chair without regard to seniority at all. That said, the Senate Republican Conference is about to make 91-year-old Chuck Grassley (R-IA) the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, because to do otherwise would be disrespectful, so maybe that change wouldn't do much after all. (V & Z)