Good grief no. Trump would choose Ronny Jackson who is in the bag for Trump and certain to fail Biden. Absolutely certain. Biden would choose someone honest.
Frankly, I don’t see that this would help. I remember that no matter what evidence Obama produced, Trump would never accept that Obama was US born.
The only way to do this would be to use a doctor who is unknown to both and give him permission to make the outcomes public. But even if it turned out that Trump fared much worse than Biden, the Trumpers would never accept it. So Biden has nothing to gain and much to lose.
Biden is the president of the United States. He has access to the finest medical care in the world, and unlike his predecessor he listens to sound medical advice instead of hiring yes-men who proclaim him the Healthiest Man What Ever Lived. If his doctors had any reason to suspect a neurological issue they would have already tested him and apprised him and his family of the results.
No, I was throwing it out as a hypothetical about the impossibility of keeping any debilitating condition quiet. And I should have mentioned that my “tests” post was sarcastic, but I forgot to put in the signifier.
All of this is to say that the exam idea is not great.
Exactly. I could just as easily say, as a person whose parents had/have Parkinson’s-related dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, that Biden didn’t act like either of them, and that what he was undergoing was something different.
Alzheimer’s in particular is insidious in that people forget things more than they’re just “out of it”. So they’ll think people are stealing stuff from them, when in fact they stashed something somewhere, forgot that they stashed it in the first place, and then when they put the pieces together as to why they can’t find their item, they logically assume that because “they didn’t do anything with it” or “it was there the last time I saw it”, that it must be a third party stealing it. Kind of like someone once told me- if you truly believe that the aliens are listening in to your thoughts, putting on a tin foil hat isn’t irrational in the least; it’s the underlying belief that the aliens are listening that’s the issue. Early Alzheimer’s is strange because it’s not like what they forget is predictable or sensible- it’s not like they lose all their short term memory, for example, and can only remember anything past a certain point. They may remember what they ate for lunch, but not remember that it was today, and think it was yesterday. Or they remember eating a hamburger, but think it was dinner instead of lunch.
I didn’t see that sort of not remembering things, and making stuff up, or just evading questions because they forgot something (another Alzheimer’s behavior) at all with Biden. He struck me as no more than a very old man who was tired, and possibly not feeling great, with all the attendant lack of energy and focus that came with that.
But I’m not a doctor, and I don’t know for sure what’s going on with him.
Honestly, I think IF that were the case (and I don’t think it is), their goal would be to get him across the finish line and then resign and transfer power to the VP/Harris.
If the president leaves their office and the VP takes over, does that person then operate without their own VP or does the Speaker move up to that position?
Actually, now that I’m looking I see this
Section 2. Whenever there is a vacancy in the office of the Vice President, the President shall nominate a Vice President who shall take office upon confirmation by a majority vote of both Houses of Congress.
That sounds messy, full of lawsuits, and potentially taking years to resolve. If something happened to President Biden (or President Trump, as the case may be). I wonder if we would end up just not having a VP for that term. Of course, in turn, that would probably result in even more cases where the courts have to get involved to figure out how to resolve issues the VP otherwise would have dealt with.
Was he in his right mind when he picked his VP?
Lawsuits don’t have to succeed to be successful-Sometimes they can be for the purpose of casting doubt and spreading crap.
To be clear, sure there may be bullshit challenges, but I can’t imagine that anyone has standing to challenge the clear language of Section 2 of the CotUS.
A debate is a chance to get up in front of an audience, share your ideas, and critique the other party’s ideas, all unassistant. That’s totally not what’s involved in the job of being President. Being absent-minded and doddering around a bit in the debate doesn’t reflect what the Biden admin can do, or has been doing.
The risk here is that for better or worse, the debate also speaks to the tribal human brain of who is the bigger, stronger, more energetic man, entirely divorced from the substance of his words. In this aspect you would expect a trained TV personality to wipe the floor with a man who is burdened with a habit of sticking to facts and substance, plus being 80 years old. And that’s exactly what happened, Trump wiped the floor with him and he’ll do it again.
Biden’s not senile but his performance is a risk to a campaign that’s trying to defeat a mouthy carnival barker. It’s unfair and it’s not what being President is about, but it’s an optical dimension of risk that needs some amount of consideration. Some voters are going to make a choice between the guy who can talk real good vs. the one who doesn’t. Like it or not, a responsible party has to think carefully about exactly how much risk this creates.
Hopkins is forty miles away, but Joe’s stuck with docs who make house calls. Local Georgetown and Howard University Hospital docs probably are just as good clinically, but, read about VIP syndrome. And consider that Ronny “Candy Man” Jackson started out as Obama’s White House physician.
The proper role of my physician is to help me, not issue a report so I could lose my job. And there is no bright line for cognitive health when it comes to a unique job.
Americans who saw the debate, and are anywhere close to being swing voters, already know Joe got a cognitive test on Thursday night and failed. Data here:
If Biden wants to stay in the race, he should change his mind about it. I already know he has good days and bad days. That’s a disease process symptom. Getting a test on a good day, for a condition where medical testing results will vary day to day, and is subject to interpretation, would be just as absurd as Trump’s test result brags.
Trump brags about all the cognitive tests he’s passed that were given to him by the great Randy Johnson. Wait, that’s Jackson. Has that laid to rest any concerns you have about Trump’s mental state? It sure as hell hasn’t helped me sleep at night.
Edit: I just saw the moderator warning. I don’t mean to make this about Trump, only demonstrate that no matter what examination Biden gets it won’t lay anyone’s fears to rest.
Let’s not forget that Biden has a stuttering problem that he’s had since childhood, and while he’s mostly overcome it, it’s not something that really goes away- I would imagine that at times of high stress and/or feeling bad, low energy, etc… it probably rears its head and makes talking clearly and forcefully even more difficult for Biden.
I am of the opinion that even if Biden was at his current best, he still wouldn’t have come out looking as “good” as Trump did, simply because his speaking style, adherence to fact, and generally not being a person who wants to be in front of the camera doesn’t play as well as someone who’s been an entertainer and who craves being in front of the camera.
I mean, that’s a large part of why actors/entertainers who go into politics do well- they’re good at the public facing part because of their past experience. Biden’s more similar to the policy wonk in the basement who knows everything backwards and forwards, but who can’t speak in public to save their life.
You mean this guy, who was demoted by the Navy based on his actions as White House physician? I don’t think I’d put a lot of stock in his opinions, medical or otherwise.