Who’s Going to Take the Keys Away from This Man?

On the menu today: For the better part of three years now, those of us who follow politics have observed mounting evidence that Joe Biden’s advanced age was becoming a major obstacle to his ability to perform his duties as president. During that time, we’ve been accused of lying and smearing a competent, sharp-minded man with a stutter, and White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre assured us that Biden has so much energy she “can’t even keep up with him.” Yesterday, that happy-talk assessment of Biden’s health, memory, and mental state took two severe blows — first from the assessment of special counsel Robert Hur, and then from the president himself in a disastrous last-minute public statement and press conference. Read on.

President Methuselah

President Joe Biden has not sat down for a formal television interview with any news outlet since October. He has not held a formal press conference since the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November. That day, he took four questions. As noted yesterday, Biden didn’t make any televised address to the nation when the U.S. launched airstrikes against the Houthis in January, nor when he ordered airstrikes against other Iranian proxy groups in Iraq and Syria earlier this month. Biden didn’t give any Election Night remarks as he romped to a big win in the South Carolina Democratic primary. And Biden is skipping the traditional Super Bowl Sunday interview for the second straight year.

Biden has been strangely absent and unavailable for questions for almost his entire presidency, and this comes after the “basement campaign” of 2020.