Bob Englehart via Cagle Cartoons
The dilemma surrounding Biden’s mental acuity and Trump’s mental stability has been haunting American voters more and more as the November presidential election nears.
Thousands of articles, programs, editorials, cartoons, even books have been dedicated to this issue.
In the wake of the final report by the special counsel, Republican Robert Hur, on the classified documents that turned up in Biden’s home and private offices, an avalanche of new, more urgent, more anxious reports and analyses have flooded the media.
Many are focused on Hur’s gratuitous comments on octogenarian Biden’s memory.
One of the comments that got my attention is one by Philadelphia Enquirer’s Will Bunch who – addressing Hur — writes, “You say a jury would find Biden ‘a well-meaning elderly man?’ What will a jury — if it ever gets that far — say about Trump, who clearly does not mean well?”
More on this later as there is another piece I would like to mention.
In an opinion piece, “Yes, Biden’s Age Matters,” that appeared in the New York Times this weekend, David French makes a very balanced and persuasive argument on why Americans are right to consider and to have concerns about President Biden’s age and mental lapses when reflecting on voting for Joe Biden or for Donald Trump in the upcoming elections.
French also touches upon Donald Trump’s own mental gaffes and more importantly on a “corrupt…77-year-old who’s facing trial on dozens of felony counts in four separate criminal cases and has recently been found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.”
There is an aspect, however, in all these discussions that has not been emphasized.
In the same opinion piece where Will Bunch compares Biden (“a well-meaning elderly man”) to Trump (“who clearly does not mean well), Bunch comes close to mentioning what should be uppermost in the minds of Americans when deciding between Biden and Trump.
Here is one example.
Bunch writes about the specter of Trump, with the advice and support of an anti-immigration guru in his new administration – Stephen Miller — “advancing plans for a Day One policy in January 2025 of large-scale deportations of undocumented immigrants, bringing dead-of-night door-knocking terror to the neighborhoods where people who deserve a path toward citizenship are working and raising families.”
And how about a Trump national security apparatus that would rubberstamp Trump’s green light to Russia to attack any NATO member delinquent in paying its NATO dues.
It is this specter, duplicated in every branch of Trump’s administration, that should worry Americans much more that Biden’s memory.
For, while Americans are understandably concerned about Biden’s mental acuity during a second term, it is crucial to keep in mind that Biden will be constantly surrounded by a cabinet, staff and advisors who will remind him of dates and names, but — more importantly — who will give him sound advice and council on matters critical to Americans and the nation.
On the other hand, there is absolutely nothing that can be done to influence the mind of a corrupt narcissist, especially one surrounded by men and women of his ilk.
