A CHALLENGING "WHAT IF?"

Would someone please give me medical evidence that Joe Biden cannot do his job?

To be clear, that would require a diagnosis that he has a disqualifying condition.

As far as I can tell, the only such conditions would be dementia, stage 3 Parkinson's disease or a stroke. If he was terminally-ill and bed-ridden with cancer or had end-stage congestive heart failure, that too would qualify.  To be clear, messing up a debate, reading from a teleprompter or confusion in the face of an opponent's unchallenged Gish-gallop of lies does not qualify. 

Age-related frailty does not qualify.  

Being required to get a little extra sleep every night does not qualify.

And three weeks of op-eds by pundits and the occasional actor . . .

Does not qualify either.

No matter how much they profess to love him.

Whether Joe Biden or anyone else can actually do the job of being president probably depends, at least as an initial matter, on what it takes to actually do the job.  As a democracy that elects its president, the easiest answer is that it takes whatever the voters think it takes.  This is fair as far as it goes. It runs, however, into problems once "what it takes" turns out to be a checklist for partisanship rather than a criteria for competence . . . 

Which is pretty much where we are today with Joe Biden.

For years, and without any objective evidence, Donald Trump and the rubber-stamped Trumpism that is today's Republican party have proclaimed Biden not fit to serve on account of his age.  They have openly proclaimed, again without any evidence, that Biden is physically and cognitively impaired and therefore cannot do his job.  Until a few weeks ago, the only "evidence" of any of this was the President's halting gait. 

The claim itself took a huge hit in March when Biden gave an impassioned State of the Union address replete with extemporaneous gibes at the right-wing amen chorus and an in-the-aisle after-party that had the Speaker wondering when he'd get to turn the lights off and send everyone home. In fact, things were so bad evidence-wise that Trump was repeatedly field-testing a "Joe's on drugs" explanation for any exhibitions of presidential energy and with-it-ness. 

But then, of course, the debate happened and Biden's poor performance became an evidentiary Rorschach test for anyone who had ever told him to be a one termer.

The problem with Rorschach tests, however, is they turn out false positives roughly half the time.  

In other words, they are useless.

And that is also the problem with using Biden's debate performance as a substitute for medical evidence.

The real job of the president is to uphold the oath of office, otherwise  make good decisions on difficult issues and work with and persuade Congress to fashion appropriate legislation.  The qualities needed to do so are respect for the rule of law, intelligence, honesty, empathy, patience, a willingness to listen and learn and the courage to admit when you are wrong. Because the job is so complicated and all-consuming, it also requires a team of non-yes men and women who can distinguish between signal and noise and a schedule where a full day's work is actually a full day.

In his one term in office, Donald Trump exhibited none of these qualities.  He broke the law, lied habitually and was lazy. "Executive time" in the residence and out of the Oval became the biggest item on his daily schedule. And while his team during that term thankfully included those whose saved us from his worst instincts, including his desire to illegally re-install himself in the White House after he lost, that will not be the case in any second term. Only the cravenly loyal will be part of any follow-on inner-sanctum.

My first reaction to the debate was to admit it was bad and that age-related questions had to be answered. I thought they could be with an independent medical exam. The White House response was that such an exam had already been done this past February and neurologists had declared the President  fit and free from "any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stoke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's or ascending lateral sclerosis." 

To me, that seems sufficient. 

To George Clooney, however, it is not.

What gives?

Lynn Casteel Harper is a minister and chaplain.  She has just written an article entitled "Ageism is Making it Impossible to Fairly Judge Joe Biden."  It appears in the current edition of America, the Jesuit review of faith and culture. 

In the article, Harper explains that "in the days since the first presidential debate" all she saw was "the circular logic that says [President Biden] is just too old”, is “incapable of leading because he's just too old and/or vulnerable to losing the election because he's just too old."  Instead, however, "of challenging the 'too old' assault for what it is -- a generalization propped up by the false equivalence of incompetence with old age -- many in the Democratic party have accepted and perpetuated this ageist language."

It is, she says, "warping media coverage and the calls for his resignation."

As Harper points out, the warping involves "both hyper-visibility and invisibility".  The "hyper-visibility scrutinizes all slip-ups, stumbles or slow-downs . . . Because ageism promulgates the notion that old age spells universal diminishment, all these highly tracked lapses are said to simply prove the point -- thus concealing ageism under the guise of 'just what it is.' Every flub from Mr. Biden gets routed back to the 'too old' evidence pile."

"The flipside of hypervisibility," she points out, "is the invisibility associated with old age, the . . . erasure [that] hides older people's gifts, knowledge, potential and accomplishments,” as well as the “positive attributes and contributions from old age." "Decline," she notes, "is presumed to be the hallmark of old age, and any kind of strength or ascendency . . . incidental or accidental". "Eclipsed by his age-associated weaknesses," she explains, "Mr. Biden's accomplishments are rendered invisible."

George Clooney's op-ed yesterday was only the latest example of this warping.  

In it, the acclaimed actor makes two assertions. The first is the unproven claim that Biden cannot win. Even after the debate, all the polls still handicap the race as a margin of error one at best. The second is the equally unproven claim that he cannot win (and Democrats will lose the House and Senate) because of his age. And that, at this point, threatens to become a self-fulfilling prophesy if repeated often enough. The rest is all about hyper-visibility or how we "collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question."

This is not just the fault of Trump and the Republicans.  

As Harper admits, Biden himself has contributed to the problem with "super senior" push-up challenges that "defend his worthiness" through "physical feats of strength."  More to the point, she writes, "Mr. Biden and his team -- and the journalists who cover him -- have rarely seized the opportunity to foster a different narrative of his aging", one that focuses "on how his judgment has gotten keener, or on how he is not the person he was a decade or two or three ago (the man who maligned Anita Hill and voted for the Iraq War), and that is a good thing."

"What if," she asks, we "acknowledged that Mr. Biden cannot zig-zag the globe and be in top debating form . . . but . . . knows how to build and lead a team, delegate appropriately, and ask for help when he needs it. Maybe it is too dangerous to admit and embrace aging in this way, and maybe ageism's stranglehold is so strong that it would not help anyway, but it seems equally counterproductive to ignore aging altogether and cede the premise that being 'too old' is automatically disqualifying."

To be clear, Harper is not saying "aging leaves us unchanged."  It is not, she admits, "just a number." "Fresh limitations and challenges arise as the years go by, but other things can emerge too, such as refined perspective, greater discernment about what is important and deepened relationships."

In the will he or won't he drumbeat that has taken over, none of this is being said. 

And that may be the biggest tragedy that now awaits us.  

There is no guarantee a different Democrat can take out Trump. He or she may not have the time. Or may not survive the vetting.  Clooney glides by these legitimate concerns, dismissing them as "scary stories" that are "simply not true."

Perhaps.

But here's another story.

Harper again:

"Mr. Biden possesses many positive attribute that become possible with accumulated life experience, something that may not necessarily be true of his opponent in this election."

The only thing wrong in that last sentence is . . . 

The “may not”.