Among the lessons for political leaders to learn from President Biden’s debate disaster, I hope one that sticks is about transparency. I don’t have much faith, but I’m going to spool it out here in the event that somebody will listen.
I presume I don’t need to tell you what happened in the debate; clearly the 81-year-old man is losing his mental capacity. He couldn’t finish sentences, he wandered almost incoherently at times, confusing himself and everybody else. The signature line of the night was when Donald Trump responded to one of Biden’s gobbledygook answers that he had no idea what Biden had said, and he didn’t think Biden did, either.
It’s not that this was entirely secret beforehand. There had been some reporting in the last month or so about Biden’s declining state, most notably by the Wall Street Journal. But not much before that. So the debate performance came across as a bit of a shocker to many people.
That’s largely because Biden has held far fewer press conferences and sit-down interviews than his predecessors. That’s because his handlers have — for what are now obvious reasons — attempted to protect him from scrutiny that could have revealed the decline.
That is the job of the handlers, right? Protect him, serve his interests?
Well, yes, in a narrow sense. But in the end it’s in nobody’s interest — not even Joe Biden’s — to hide the President from serious journalists.
Consider the spot we’re now in. If Biden continues in the race, which all indications point to at the moment, he’s likely to lose, and we’ll end up with Donald Trump. Many of you reading this support Mr. Trump, and that is your right, and I suppose this situation benefits your interest in seeing him elected.
But even then, the country — and Mr. Trump, for that matter — would be better served by having an election involving spirited debate over serious issues, rather than one candidate simply not being able to finish sentences.
With tough inquiry and more transparency, this entire situation could have been avoided. It would have been awkward, but there would have been more time to deal with the fallout. President Biden could have claimed victory and ridden off into the sunset — “I did my job and served my country,” or some such, and the Democrats could have picked a better candidate to try to succeed him.
Instead, not only do we have the sad spectacle of a diminished old man trying to hang on, we have Democrats out there trying to defend him. It’s July, and there’s an election in November, so in many ways that’s understandable, even if it’s sad and perverse. Ultimately they can’t force him out, since he has all the delegates.
It all could have been avoided.
