Somebody Agrees With Me

Is Biden drunk? pic.twitter.com/ex6IjBoZ0J

— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) November 24, 2023

Nick Arama responded to the post at Red State:

After the press conference, some on the X platform began asking questions about Biden's condition and how he came into the press conference.

Some of those questions didn't hold back and were blunt.

Unfortunately, farther down, he unintentionally reveals something about the condition of journalism at Conservative Inc:

He has gait problems, in addition to his incoherence and deterioration. I'm not sure that it matters what name you put on it at this point--except to say that he has continuing problems. If it were just that he was drunk, that might be beer, because at least that would goes [sic] away.

"That might be beer"? Wha? What on earth is he trying to say? Maybe he meant to type, "that might be bad enough, but at least that would go away". But then he followed it up "that would goes away". Here's my problem. The people who write at Red State are being paid; they're at least semi-pro. But not only are they not proofreading their own copy, there doesn't seem to be a copy editing function at Red State or nearly any other conservative alternate media. And Red State is owned by Salem Media, which calls itself "the largest community of opinion leaders and Main Street conservatives today". Where have you gone, Bill Buckley?

But back to my point. The video at the link isn't clear; all I can see is a certain hitch in Joe's gait that could stem from several causes -- I'm five years younger than Joe, and it's been a while since I've been really steady on my feet. But what's convinced me that Joe is drunk is that his speech patterns, slurring, hypercorrection, and random pauses, are the sort of thing police officers are trained to recognize are signs of intoxication.

Occam's razor is "the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements". The received explanation for Joe's stumbling speech is that it's an artifact of a childhood stutter, or something like that, but it seems to me that it reaches too far back and adds too many hypothetical factors. A much simpler explanation is that he talks like he's drunk because he's drunk.

But Mr Arama at Red State gets something else wrong -- if Joe is drunk, at least it goes away. The problem I see is that Joe displays intoxicated speech patterns almost all the time, and the "almost" is what gives it away. He was able to avoid the problem during his 2020 debates with Trump, which was a major factor in his November victory -- had his performance been the usual stumbles and gaffes, he woud have taken himself out of the running. He's also able to speak clearly at least for brief public statements after meetings with major world leaders, but only the G8, not the G20.

That suggests his handlers are able to keep him away from alcohol at the most critical times -- but otherwise, he's pickled. All the time, or maybe, as one Kennedy remarked about another, he's sober 20 minutes a day. This may be functionally equivalent to dementia, and it may make little difference in Joe's overall performance, but it's a simpler expanation that doesn't require a medical diagnosis.

How do we reconcile this with his frequent claims, which he's made even to Pope Francis, "I'm the only Irishman you've ever met who's never had a drink." Nevertheless,

Alcoholism, like any other addiction, changes behavior. People who struggle with addiction have undergone changes in their brains that make rational decision-making more difficult. Common behavior changes that many people notice are lying, deception, and avoidance.

Joe tells lies. He tells them all the time. He was arrested trying to see Nelson Mandela in South Africa. He was arrested marching for civil rights in the US. He was raised by Puerto Ricans. He got Strom Thurmond to vote for the Civil Rights Act. He was appointed to the Naval Academy. He used to drive an 18-wheeler. He played varsity football at the University of Delaware. Golda Meir wanted him to be her liaison with the Egyptians. That he's never had a drink has got to be the least of it.