Let's Look At The Latest Episode

There's been the usual chatter from the usual suspects over Joe's latest breach of decorum, walking out of yesterday's Medal of Honor ceremony for US Army Cpt Larry Taylor before it had finished. Once again, Sean Hannity, among others, called Joe "dazed and confused", which I didn't see at all.

Joe begins speaking for his part of the ceremony at 2:45 in the video at the top of this post. He's aware of the chaplain offering the opening prayer, and he waits respectfully as the chaplain speaks for over two minutes. Then Joe moves to the lectern and begins his scripted remarks. He's aware of the lectern, the circumstances, and his role in delivering the prepared address, which he reads mostly with some degree of expression. He knows where the teleprompter is, and he reads from it in mostly coherent sentences.

While I'm not a medical professional, as a layman, I don't see him appearing to be unaware of his surroundings or seeing people who aren't there. On the other hand, just for starters, I went to the undergraduate institution that was the model for Faber College in Animal House, and I know a thing or two about functioning in an impaired state and seeing other people who are this way. If I didn't know better, I'd say Joe was drunk at the ceremony, not suffering from some other state of cognitive impairment.

I understand Joe officially doesn't drink. For instance, this statement issued during his 2020 campaign says,

Joe Jr.'s family and neighbors also, inadvertently, taught him about the dangers of alcohol—and it's the reason he doesn't drink, according to him.

. . . Joe Jr. has specifically said why he doesn't drink at all: "There are enough alcoholics in my family," he said in 2008 on the campaign trail.

The problem I have is that, at least to my ear, he in fact struggles to talk as if he isn't intoxicated, not much different from Otter and Bluto. Just take the excerpt that begins at 6:35 in the video:

So when Larryas ordered [pause] uh ayun Larry, as ordered, offered a spot eh to fly in the Fighting First in Viet Nam, he jumped at the chance.

At 8:18:

Overz radio he said "let's get to work!" A flare went up, and the flight -- fight was on. The enemy fire lit up the night. Lt Taylorn is copilot dove down positioning's cobra nearly -- parallel -- with -- the -- Viet -- Cong -- fighters.

There's quite a bit of slurring in the sentences that follow. Those who watch the current On Patrol: Live police ride-along program, or who've watched previous shows like Live PD or Cops know that such patterns of speech are one good potential indicator of driver intoxication. Linguistic studies reflect this as well, for instance:

[T]here is a 2001 study entitled Effects of ethanol intoxication on speech suprasegmentals by Harry Hollien and colleagues.

Hollien, et al., administered controlled amounts of alcohol to a group of young adults, and quantified the aspects of their speech that changed the drunker they got.

. . . The researchers also found a decrease in the subjects’ speaking rate as they become more intoxicated. There seems a specific point at which this slowing of speech occurs: men slow down the most at a blood alchohol level between 0.04 and 0.08; for women, this occurs between 0.08 and 0.12.

Finally, the researchers found that the most striking impact of alchohol on speech was an increase in ‘nonfluencies.’ That is, people stammer, stutter, and trip on their words a whole heck of a lot more when they’ve had a few too many. Just how much does this intensify? The researchers found that in the severely intoxicated, the rate of these ‘speech errors’ nearly triples.

The writer adds,

Something that isn’t mentioned in the study is what I find to be the most salient feature of ‘drunken speech:’ hypercorrection. Drunk people, aware of their intoxicated state, often overcompensate by overenunciating evvvveerrry ccconnnsonnantttt and vowel. Perhaps this relates to the higher rate of stuttering and stammering: when you put such pressure on yourself to pronounce everything perfectly, you’re bound to trip up!

Stammering, stuttering, tripping over words, sudden extra care in enunciation, sudden slowing, and slurring are all routine features of Joe's speech. His defenders have insisted it's a speech impediment he's had all his life, but looking at earlier clips of Joe's speech even while he was vice president suggests the problem has worsened in recent years.

There are two reasonable explanations for this. The first, which I think is especially likely with Speaker Emerita Pelosi, who also claims not to drink, is that this claim is false. I've posted on her case. Another explanation, which may be more likely for Joe, is that although he doesn't drink, one or another prescription drug, quite possibly used more than recommended, is having an effect comparable to alcohol.

I get the impression that the Overton window of acceptable discussion attributes Joe's problems with enunciation and his frequent breaches of official decorum to age exclusively, but it then declares the subject off limits due to tact. This happened most visibly yesterday in an exchange between Fox's Peter Doocy and Press Secretary Jean-Pierre:

During Tuesday's press briefing, Fox News' Peter Doocy pointed out that Biden, at age 80, is the 'oldest president in U.S. history,' and then asked why White House staff treated him like a 'baby.'

'No one treats the president of the United States, the commander-in-chief, like a baby,' Jean-Pierre answered. 'That's ridiculous.'

But that same day, Joe had stumbled and slurred through his remarks at Cpt Taylor's ceremony, fastened the medal around his neck, and simply walked off before the ceremony was over. As I've felt all along, I don't think this was a result of Joe being unaware of his surroundings or even the requirements of ceremonial decorum. I think he was either drunk or under the influence of prescription drugs used to excess, he felt like walking out, and he could, because Joe is Caesar. Peter Doocy began a necessary process of calling this out.

Both Republican and Democrat challengers to Joe for 2024 need to start bringing this up. As I've been saying all along, I don't think this is a matter of age, or not age exclusively. Joe acts drunk. He acts drunk all the time. It's affecting his ability to do his job, at minimum at official ceremonies. We need to start asking why.