Remember that brilliant line from the principal in the movie "Billy Madison"?
"Mr. Madison, what you have just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it."
I feel this way every time I hear someone on the Left trot out the "Biden had a cold" excuse for his pathetic performance in last week's presidential debate with Donald Trump.
The most recent iteration is a propagandist apologia at Newsweek by a pair of doctors with fancy credentials from Yale. They write:
The country is struggling to reconcile Biden's cognitive impairment during the debate with his obvious recovery well into the night and the next day.
The most probable explanation for this transient period of cognitive impairment in an older person with a cold is a side effect of cold medications. If this is so, the handwringing should cease, and we should use the debate as a reminder of how common such reactions are rather than an indication that the president is chronically debilitated.
They go on to tell this whopper about Biden's mental acuity:
In recent weeks, Biden has made several high-profile public appearances on the world stage. He commemorated the 80th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, France, attended press briefings at the G7 Summit in Italy, and engaged with the public and world leaders. Journalists who have been beside Biden closely these past few weeks reported no such impairment, aligning with bullish sentiment from the Biden debate prep team. Everyone would have noticed if Biden exhibited even a fraction of what he displayed at the debate. [Emphasis added]
Come on, man. Everyone has noticed Biden's recent bizarre behavior at the aforementioned events.
The only people who avert their eyes and pretend not to notice are hardened leftists and their flacks in the media (redundant, I know).
But like the JFK-era media—and the FDR-era and Wilson-era media before that—they are going along with the charade, even perpetuating it, so they can help a progressive Democrat president.
Roosevelt's White House physician claimed that the president merely suffered from sinus problems. Incidentally, it was common during that time for sinus problems to be treated by regularly swabbing the sinuses with a cocaine solution. (Maybe something like this explains Biden's manic performance during the State of the Union address?)
It was clear that FDR suffered from much more severe problems to the point that his opponent in 1944, New York Gov. Thomas Dewey, pushed the narrative that FDR was a "tired old man." In a July 1944 letter, Interior Secretary Harold Ickes urged the president to admit he's a "tired old man" but then pivot to his accomplishments.
"I am in favor of telling the country, so that all may hear, just what we 'tired old men' have done, with particular emphasis on what has been accomplished in connection with the war," Ickes wrote. "If we try to evade it, we will make it more important," he added.
Hmmm… why does this sound so familiar? Oh, I know. It's the exact same strategy Biden apologists used after his awful performance in the debate.
While FDR hid his disabilities from the American public, our enemies were not fooled. Italy's Fascist Party leader, Benito Mussolini, said in May 1941:
Never in the course of history has a nation been guided by a paralytic. There have been bald kings, fat kings, handsome and even stupid kings, but never kings who, in order to go to the bathroom and the dinner table, had to be supported by other men.
Seven months later, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, plunging the United States into WWII against Italy, Germany, and Japan. A few days after the attack Nazi Germany declared war on the United States.
Three months later, in March 1942, Adolph Hitler remarked:
Roosevelt is insane, as a professor already explained years ago. He rushes chaotically from Washington to his estate out of fear of being bombed, rushes back, and so on. His press statements also show that the man is insane. He's making his whole country hysterical, the way he's going. How could it be possible otherwise that a panic could break out among reasonable people in Chicago because of a radio play ["War of the Worlds] about Martians landing there.
That summer, Hitler escalated his attempt to exterminate the Jews by expanding Auschwitz. That's also the year Hitler reportedly became addicted to amphetamines, leading to his "erratic behavior" (make whatever connections you will).
The left-wing media can ignore Biden's obvious impairment all they want, but you know who isn't ignoring it? Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin, and the Ayatollah Khamenei. The world has destabilized significantly during Biden's term, and America's enemies now know that the alleged Leader of the Free World is in the throes of dementia and/or under the influence of mind-altering drugs—not just the cold medicine he allegedly took before the debate, but whatever had him amped up during the State of the Union address.
When America is weak, our enemies take advantage. To cite just one recent example: the Iran nuclear deal, which gave pallets of cash to one of the most evil regimes in modern history and made the world less safe. Iran took advantage of a weak-kneed Barack Obama and a cognitively impaired Joe Biden. There's also the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in the wake of Biden's botched withdrawal.
What will Iran, N. Korea, and Russia do if Biden wins a second term? They are champing at the bit to expand their power at the expense of the United States. It's the stuff of nightmares.
Nevertheless, the Yale doctors, while conceding that Biden was dazed and confused during the debate, conclude, "It would be tragic to magnify the meaning of an ill-timed adverse drug effect—and potentially have it change the course of history."
You know what would be tragic? If a sedated, amphetamine-fueled, or otherwise impaired Joe Biden answered the 3 a.m. call about a nuclear strike on Hawaii or a terrorist attack on a major city.
If an over-the-counter Sudafed can take down the president of the United States, he's in no condition to run the country. Our enemies know this and will take advantage of it when the moment is right. Talk about changing the course of history.
