UPDATE:
As additional and more in-depth investigations, civil and criminal proceedings and charging decisions loom over former president Trump, judgements about his character are hardening.
However, many had already formed an opinion years ago.
Former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, had Trump pegged more than five years ago, when Brennan penned, in response to Trump’s callous crowing over the firing of FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe:
When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history. You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but will not destroy America… America will triumph over you.
Original Post:
Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley wrote an opinion piece on Fox News insisting how badly the nation needs a “very basic” competency test for politicians over the age of seventy-five.
While using Sen. Dianne Feinstein as an example (“At 89 years old, she is a prime example of why we need mental competency tests for politicians”), Haley’s obvious target is President Joe Biden about whom she has previously anticipated that he is likely to die within five years.
According to Haley, Biden — who will be 82 when he takes the oath of office if elected — “exhibits cognitive decline…often seems disoriented and confused.”
After bashing the competence of vice president Kamala Harris and lamenting how “Harris would have the highest likelihood of becoming president in the middle of a term of any vice president ever” if Biden is re-elected, Haley proposes that Sen. Feinstein, President Biden, and others take the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Test.
Why? Because “voters deserve to know whether those who are making major decisions about war and peace, taxation and budgets, schools and safety, can pass a very basic mental exam…” Haley claims.
Remember “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV.”? And how Trump boasted about identifying an elephant in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, a test designed to detect signs of dementia, Alzheimer’s disease or other conditions, rather than mental acuity.
Did “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV” make Americans feel confident that Trump could handle the “3 a.m. phone call”? Did it reassure Americans that Trump was part of “a new generation of leaders to renew our national strength and pride,” as Haley claims passing the test should prove?
Haley is not the only one clamoring for the “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV” test.
In “Donald Trump, Whose Brain Is Held Together by Thumbtacks and Silly Putty, Demands ‘Mental Competency Test’ for Presidential Candidates,” Bess Levin quotes Trump declaring on Truth Social:
ANYBODY running for the Office of President of the United States should agree to take a full & complete Mental Competency Test simultaneously (or before!) with the announcement that he or she is running, & likewise, but to a somewhat lesser extent, agree to a test which would prove that you are physically capable of doing the job. Being an outstanding President requires great mental acuity & physical stamina. If you don’t have these qualities or traits, it is likely you won’t succeed. MAGA!
With the caveat that there are not enough hours in the day to list the many examples of Trump not having it all together up top, Levin lists just a few recent examples.
It is strange, but perhaps understandable, that Haley has never called for a real competency test for her former boss. It is even more telling that she is not discussing equally important traits Americans expect to see in their presidents: Morality, integrity, honesty, compassion. In other words, moral competence.
While there may not be tests to measure character, Trump has, through his actions, repeatedly exposed his profound flaws. Already in 2019, TIME highlighted Trump’s unfitness for office: His “petty corruption, his temperamental unfitness, and his rank incompetence.”
Since then, Trump has demonstrated corruption at a level that goes well beyond “petty.”
And Nikki Hailey has the audacity to tell us that President Biden needs to take the “Person. Woman. Man. Camera. TV” test?
If there is such a thing, a “Trustworthiness. Morals. Integrity. Empathy.” test would be much more important.
One must remember that, while good advisors can refresh a president’s memory, nothing can restore a person’s integrity.
Paraphrasing Haley: “Voters deserve to know whether their leaders can pass a very basic character test.”
