Joe Biden: The Lights Are on, but Nobody's Home

By Ward Clark | 6:10 PM on April 29, 2024

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Holy crap, he's getting worse. Who is keeping this poor old man up there in the public eye? It's getting harder, day by day, to think he's capable of making any substantive decisions; why are the Democrats continuing to place their presidential hopes on this guy? It has to be embarrassing — but then, the Democrats have plenty to be embarrassed about, assuming they are still capable of feeling embarrassment.

They’re not going to let Joe debate anyone. pic.twitter.com/7STG4QUxsK
— Big Fish (@BigFish3000) April 29, 2024

In this video, the president — the leader of the free world, the man with his thumb on the nuclear button — is faced with a line of inquiry from an unknown person, and you can see, sadly, clearly, that his mind just isn't there. The lights are on, but there's nobody home. He's gone. He's checked out. He's rung down the curtain. There's no jam on his toast. Whoever it is that's speaking to him talks and talks, and old Joe just looks at him blankly until his mind shifts, and he meanders away without saying a word.

The RNC Research X account has a pinned post showing five full minutes of the president's mumbles and stumbles; that post was placed on February 10th. Almost three months later, things are getting worse.

Here are five straight minutes that show exactly why the special counsel noted Biden's diminished mental fitness pic.twitter.com/u1ToosAKyz
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) February 11, 2024

Oh, the president can still — sometimes — read the teleprompter, and can still issue thinly veiled threats to our allies.

WATCH: Will Cain and Pete Hegseth Have Some Fun Detailing and Mocking Biden's Fictional Resume

Some national Democrats are (finally!) starting to express some doubts, but the Biden administration sure seems all-in for the campaign. It seems likely that a lot of that is coming from Jill Biden, who is enjoying playing Edith Wilson to old Joe’s Woodrow; she is also probably enjoying the mountains of cash the Biden family is raking in from their foreign dealings.

And there’s not a lot of time to get a new ticket on the ballot. Joe’s 2020 dance partner sure won’t be able to run with that ball; her approval ratings are lower than the Barents Abyssal Plain, she has all the personal appeal of psoriasis, and would lose a battle of wits with a pet rock.

Here's the real problem: The Trump campaign is going to be pushing for a presidential debate or, more likely, a series of them, and as my colleague Nick Arama pointed out recently, Joe has screwed up and indicated he's down for the challenge. He's not. He can't debate, not in his current condition, and it's likely too late for the Democrats to replace him — unless his health forces a retirement before the election and he allows the even-less-appealing vice president to take his place.

Meanwhile, the GOP is finally, slowly, arranging all of their web-footed fowl in a linear fashion.

The Biden campaign will doubtless keep trying to find a way to evade and avoid any presidential debates. But the Trump people will continue to push, and whatever you might think of Donald Trump, he’s not senile. He lacks personal messaging discipline; he’s prickly, short-tempered, prone to delivering friendly rhetorical fire to people who should be his allies, and he tends to fly off the handle when challenged. But he’s not senile. And ain’t it a fine pass we’ve come to as a nation when a presidential candidate can be seen as having an edge because he’s not senile?

We do indeed live in interesting times.