No, It Isn't Cognitive Decline

I ran into three vignettes over the weekend that I think provide some insight into the big guy's mental state. The first, via Drudge, is from the UK Daily Mail: Camilla 'hasn't stopped talking about' hearing the President 'break wind' during chat at Cop26 climate summit in Glasgow

An informed source has told The Mail on Sunday that Camilla was taken aback to hear Biden break wind as they made polite small talk at the global climate change gathering in Glasgow last week.

'It was long and loud and impossible to ignore,' the source said. 'Camilla hasn't stopped talking about it.'

The photo above from the story is at least confirmation that this could have taken place. Indeed, the expression on the duchess's face, not to mention the big guy's, suggests it might even have occurred as the shutter snapped.

Curious, I did a web search on flatulence and discovered it isn't normally indicative of an underlying medical condition but can be controlled through diet or via over-the-counter remedies like Beano. What's the story with President Biden?

Naturally, I'm neither a doctor nor a dietician, but in the context of what we already know about him, I would say it's something like the Louis XIV syndrome.

Louis XIV suffered from serious digestive problems from swallowing food without chewing. This caused Louis XIV to break wind very frequently which filled whatever room he was in with horrendous odor. To deal with his digestive problems, Louis XIV was prescribed with laxatives for years. He would frequently visit the toilet up to 15 times a day due to the laxatives.

Notwithstanding, King Louis was definitely a babe magnet. Charming and attractive women sought his company, presumably seeing deeper qualities beyond the stench. My sense of President Biden is that he understands that whatever he does, the press and the political establishment will cover for him, and this is yet another example of the circumstance.

The second vignette is the very strange story of the FBI raids on the residences of James O’Keefe and others connected with Project Veritas as part of an investigation into a possibly stolen diary said to have been kept by President Biden's daughter, Ashley.

O’Keefe says he was approached by a tipster he didn’t know who offered him the diary (or a copy) but who also said they were negotiating a sale of the diary to another site. O’Keefe said Project Veritas tried to verify the diary was real and that the things discussed in it had really happened but ultimately could not do either. “At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because in part we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary in fact belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary in any part thereof,” O’Keefe said.

Project Veritas attempted to give the diary to an attorney for Ashley Biden who refused it and then they wound up giving it to law enforcement so it could be returned to its owner.

The provenance of the manuscript, according to the stories on line, is very similar to that of Hunter Biden's laptop: apparently it was left behind when she moved out of an apartment and made its way to alternate media sources who shopped it around. If true, like the Hunter Biden laptop, this is abandoned property and not stolen. Indeed, once it came to O'Keefe's attention, he attempted to return it to Ashley Biden's attorney and finally gave it to law enforcement himself.

The issue is whether any crime occurred at all, but even if it did, why the FBI would be involved. As various commentators have said, that the FBI would be chasing it down is strong reason to conclude it is authentic. The original site that published it presents it as scans of original handwritten pages. It doesn't appear to have been transcribed at all. Entries suggest someone represented as Ms Biden is trying to recover from indefinite forms of childhood sexual abuse that do apparently include inappropriate showers with her father.

What we do know of the big guy's conduct includes bizarre public invasions of young girls' personal space, hair sniffing, inappropriate touching of adult women, and naked swimming in front of female secret service agents. None of the implied allegations from his daughter's diary comes, if authentic, as a complete surprise. Again, the impression this gives is that Biden has been more or less in the background through most of his public career, but nevertheless has developed a habit of impunity, with a sense that the establishment and press will cover for him.

The problem is that if this investigation results in an indictment, the whole story will definitely come out. There is some deeply flawed judgment involved here, but not cognitive decline. There's a clear sense of actions, potential consequences, and things that apperently need to be kept from public view that we would not see in a case of dementia or disorganized thinking.

The third vignette is the episode of shouting at a reporter who questioned why the big guy called reports of negotiations to pay illegal immigrant families compensation for enforcement actions "garbage":

I would characterize this as "shame rage", anger at being caught in an untruth, but he's also fully aware that if he blows up at the reporter directly, it will look bad. So he just shouts and gestures. This is organized behavior. It isn't intelligent, and it displays poor judgment, but it isn't cognitive decline.

However, I don't think this will go without its own consequences. By the way, this guy has gone to weekly Roman Catholic mass all his life, it would seem. Something's really wrong here, but it isn't medical.