In a story about Fred Trump’s Alzheimer diagnosis, Washington Post political reporter Michael Kranish decided to go for the outrageous over the nuanced with regard to President Biden.

Kranish used an inflammatory media soundbite, the one where news media treated a Trump-appointed LAWYER as though he were a GERIATIC PSYCHOLOGIST.

His own paper added nuance to that original reporting once DOJ released the full transcript. Kranish, however, used the pull quote from early February rather than nuance context that is than a week old.

In February, NBC News was an exception to the Biden-is-old drumbeat:

“If you asked me when my mother passed away, I couldn’t necessarily tell you the exact year because it was many years ago,” Dr. Paul Newhouse, clinical core leader for the Vanderbilt Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, said…

“Naming proper nouns is not an adequate basis to make a conclusion about whether an individual has a more consistent and more concerning substantive progressive memory disorder,” [Dr. Dennis Selkoe, co-director of the Ann Romney Center for Neurologic Diseases at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston] said…

Overall, neurologists tend to worry less about a patient’s ability to remember remote memories from many years ago and more troubled by an inability to recall more recent events. That’s because dementia first affects the part of the brain that’s responsible for short-term memories, as opposed to long-term memories, said Newhouse…

“There is a type of emotional intelligence and ability to handle many different kinds of experiences in life that come with greater longevity,” [Selkoe] said. “People can make decisions more carefully and more rationally.”

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My mother died before my father. I know the day my daddy died: it was the day after my mother’s birthday, which was the day after my husband’s. I know the day and year that he was born. But the year he died? I have to compute it based on other events.

My mother died towards the end of a cold January. She knew Mike and I had decided to get married. I was teaching at the University of Washington, and a grad student urged me to go home (south Georiga) the week before her death. I had talked to her the day before.

Year? Ummm. After momma and daddy’s 50th anniversary. After I started at U.W. Early 2000s, but which? Date? January 24, but only because I looked it up in February when the chattering class decided to amplify a partisan snipe.

Reciting dates is not a measurement of cognitive competence. My husband has NEVER had date recall.

Judgment. Context. Experiences. If you’re managing money, math (or an understanding of your accounting software).

Also, there was a veiled criticism of Biden’s straying from the direct question. That’s not age. That’s personality (maybe a bit of ADHD). The stories were coherent.

Any coherence here? This is from Rome, Georgia, 11 March 2024.

(10:26)
And then you turn to fake news, CNN. Oh, their light just went off. Their light just went off. The red light just went off. What do you think of that, Jim? Dammit, that’s my fault. I waited too long. You have to hit them fast before they can turn it off. No, it just went off. That’s all right. And they’ll say the speech was brilliant. Not since FDR. You know, FDR was a great orator. Beautiful tone, beautiful. He was born at a very patrician area, to put it mildly, very rich, very patrician, beautiful accent, beautiful words. He was a great speaker. And they said, “Not since FDR has a speech been so beautifully delivered.” Do you believe this? No. Do you believe this? I think Marjorie believes it because she was there. She saw…

(32:18)
I had dinner last night with a great gentleman from Hungary, Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban. Very, very tough. Some people don’t like him because he is very tough, and they were interviewing him two months ago. He said it again yesterday, actually. I appreciate it. It’s very nice. It’s good if you’re running for office, I guess. But he said, “The problem with America is they need Trump back as president. When Trump was president, there were none of these problems. Israel wouldn’t have been attacked. Ukraine and Russia wouldn’t be fighting.” I knew Putin. I know him very well. No way he was going in. No way Putin was going in. Putin would have gone in under any circumstances, but then they gave him added incentive. The things Biden said were the exact opposite things. I said, “He’s going to talk this guy into going in.” You listen to the way he talked. He had no idea what he was doing…

Or listen for yourself.

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