Before they go into the voting both, every American has a right to have ample opportunity to assess for themselves the mental and physical well-being of every candidate seeking the presidency.
Any campaign employing a strategy to deny the American people that opportunity is unacceptable.
Unfortunately, this is exactly what the president’s minders are doing.
In fact, the effort to hide the president’s deficits began during his last campaign and have continued since.
President Joe Biden almost never appears in public without a teleprompter or note cards, from which he reads prepared statements. On those rare occasions when speaks for himself, he inevitably says something the White House is forced to “clarify” afterward.
Less than two weeks after a life-culminating trip to the Emerald Isle, a child at a White House “Take Your Child to Work Day” event, asked the president to name the country he had traveled to most recently. He couldn’t answer.
”The last country I’ve traveled — I’m trying to think the last one I was in — I, I’ve been to 89 — I’ve met with 89 heads of state so far, so, uh — I’m trying to think. What was the last — Where was the last place I was? It’s hard to keep track. Um, I was….”
Another child mercifully saved the president by shouting he had just returned from Ireland. “Yeah, you’re right, Ireland,” Biden said. “That’s where it was. How’d you know that?”
NPR described the president’s trip this way. “Joe Biden checked a big item off his bucket list last week when he visited Ireland, his ancestral home, as president. It was a deeply personal and wistful journey.”
Biden told the Irish, “It’s one of the great honors of my career to be here today. And I mean it from the bottom of my heart.” He has said Ireland was part of his soul.
By all accounts the trip was a profoundly moving event in the president’s life, yet less than two weeks later he had to be reminded he had even been there.
For me, that’s a concern.
For you, it might not be a concern, but either way, to hide the president’s actual mental health by keeping him out of the public eye or denying him the opportunity to speak for himself does the American people a great disservice.
The truth is, concerns about an individual’s mental well-being are not always sufficient to cause voters to chose an alternate candidate. The people of Pennsylvania certainly had ample evidence that now-Sen. John Fetterman was struggling in that regard, but voted him into office anyway.
Likewise, if people want to vote for Biden despite what appears be his deteriorating mental capacity, they have every right to do so.
But everyone deserves to be able to make that decision based on Biden’s actual abilities, not on a carefully choreographed effort to portray him as something he’s not.
He needs to regularly take questions from the press, questions that aren’t made known to the president before they’re asked, and to which he has been given pre-scripted responses.
He also must be required to debate other candidates who are seeking his party’s nomination.
Biden cannot be allowed to again campaign from his home in Delaware. He did that three years ago because of concerns his caretakers at that time had about his command of the issues.
They feared if they untethered Biden from the restrictions they put in place to protect him from public scrutiny and gave the American people an unvarnished view of his actual capabilities, they might very well conclude he was not up to the task of running the country.
I think it’s safe to assume Biden’s mental acuity has not improved since then, and it is becoming increasingly apparent he is a man in decline.
Being president has a way of taking a toll on the strongest of individuals, even if they do go on vacation to their home at the beach every weekend, and maintain a historically light schedule.
I can only imagine what Biden’s mental acuity will be six years from now at the end of a second term.
The world is an impossibly dangerous, complex place. Having a president fully capable of managing that complexity is not a luxury. It is an absolute necessity.
I don’t care where one’s political loyalties lie, it is essential the president’s team not be permitted to paint a false portrait of the man.
Give the American people the opportunity to see the president as he really is, and then let them decide for themselves whether he should have a second term.
The press has a responsibility to aggressively vet every candidate wanting to occupy the Oval Office. It’s their job. It’s what they do.
Making an exception for Biden is not in anyone’s best interest, including the president’s, and it certainly is not in the best interest of the country.
Chris Roemer is a retired banker and educator who resides in Finksburg. He can be contacted at [email protected]