By Patrick F. Cannon

I hate to kick a man when he’s down, but President Biden continues to demonstrate that even now – in the final year of his term – he is too old to fully function in his role as the de facto leader of the free world. Even most of his own party wishes he would step aside and make way for a younger candidate to oppose (alas, it looks like) Donald Trump in November.

            Add to these misgivings the report of special counsel Robert K. Hur, in which he declined to prosecute the president in the classified documents case in part because he found him a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” and with “diminished faculties of advancing age.”

            Many have criticized these comments as “gratuitous.” I disagree. Kur made them because the president’s faulty memory would have weighed in his favor in any possible trial, by providing reasonable doubt as to his motivation. President Biden compounded the damage by holding a news conference to denounce the report, at which he confused the presidents of Egypt and Mexico. His staff must have, by now, raised “cringe” to high art.

            His mental capacity is flawed now. What will it be like when he’s 86, which he will be if he’s re-elected and serves his full term? He will be nine years older than Ronald Reagan was when he left office, and Reagan was noticeably failing mentally at the end. I’ll be 86 in less than a month, and I suspect my memory is better than the presidents, but I don’t have to undergo the daily stress of his office. Do you know anyone whose mental capacities improved with age?

            I know he always wanted to be president. He tried and failed several times. After loyally serving as Obama’s vice president for eight years, his persistence was rewarded, after Hillary Clinton failed to stop Trump. I can’t help but feel that many party leaders assumed he would be satisfied to serve one term. Clearly, he wants to hang on; and some, probably including his wife, are encouraging him to do so.

            We have a strange situation in this country. On the one hand, we have a Republican Party that seems frightened to death of the ultimate grifter, Donald Trump. On the other, we have a Democratic Party whose members tell pollsters they think President Biden is too old to run again, but whose leadership won’t come out in public and say what they must believe.

            I’m reminded of 1974, when Republican leaders Senators Goldwater and Scott, and House Minority Leader Rhodes went to see President Nixon to tell him that there weren’t enough votes left to prevent his impeachment in the House and conviction in the Senate. While they didn’t demand he resign, he got the message.

            I’m sure we’re all familiar with the technique of “intervention,” when a group of friends and/or relatives confronts an addict in an attempt to get him or her (or perhaps “they”) to admit to having a problem, as a first step in overcoming it. Why doesn’t a group of Democratic Party leaders (and donors!) confront President Biden with the obvious: “You’re too old to run again. If you do, you’ll go down in history as the cranky old man who gave the country back to Donald Trump. If you step down, you’ll be able to point to your achievements and act the elder statesman role!”

            But then, I struggle to think of any of the current crop of politicians who put the interests of the country before their own.

Copyright 2024, Patrick F. Cannon