Dean Phillips Goes There

I’m attacked for being honest and saying the quiet part out loud - the part DC insiders only do in private.

I admire our President. I voted for him and campaigned for him. He has visited my home and been gracious to my family and our country.

But shame on all of you pretending… pic.twitter.com/OdaKvW7vbc

— Dean Phillips (@deanbphillips) February 6, 2024

Dean Phillips, a moderate Democrat representing a largely prosperous Minnesota suburban district in the House, is running against Biden in a long-shot bid for the Democrat nomination. Since Joe's fitness to serve is currently among the top issues for the 2024 general election, Phillips has had little choice but to bring it up, which he does in the X post above.

He includes video of Joe's two most recent gaffes, the one on the left where he claims he talked to French President Mitterand after the 2020 election, when Miterrand died in 1996, and on the right the one where he struggles badly over a reporter's question about Hamas, slurring his reply. His comment:

But shame on all of you pretending everything is ok. You are leading us - and him - into a disaster, and you damn well know it.

Rep Phillips is simply echoing what Republicans have been saying since at least 2022:

A former White House physician says President Biden’s cognitive abilities have deteriorated to the point that they present a “national security issue.”

Rep. Ronny Jackson, Texas Republican, said that Mr. Biden should take a test of his mental acuity, which he said has obviously deteriorated at a time when the risk of a war with Russia requires a sharp U.S. president.

“I’m not trying to make a diagnosis,” cautioned Mr. Jackson, who was White House physician under President Trump. “But I think the whole world sees that he’s having some issues. He’s struggling cognitively.”

Speaker Johnson skirted close to the topic last weeK:

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) speculated Friday that President Biden’s staff is keeping him from taking executive action to stem the flow of migrants on the southern border.

“He knows that he has the authority. We’ve documented it for him. I’ve read to him the law myself — to the president. Read him the provisions of the law and said, ‘Mr. President, please take action,’” Johnson said on Fox Business on Friday morning.

“I don’t think he’s allowed to do it. I’m not sure Joe Biden is actually making these decisions. I think it’s staff around him, and they’re pushing him to hold the — or to keep the border open,” Johnson said.

Nobody can make a diagnosis who isn't a medical professional who's examined Joe in person, but when you think about it, police officers, who aren't medical professonals, are routinely expected to make judgments, based on their training and experience, about whether a person is too drunk to drive. I make no secret on this blog that I'm a big fan of police ride-along shows like Cops and On Patrol: Live, and those shows frequently feature DUI stops. DUI suspects, often the ones whose BAC is over .20, simply act a lot like Joe.

In the video Rep Philips posted on the right above, the one where he struggles with his answer about Hamas, Joe's behavior strikes me as remarkably similar to the typical symptoms of intoxication the Sarasota County deputy outlines in this episode of Cops on YouTube:

At 1:45, he explains, concerning the woman he'd stopped,

I would almost describe her as lethargic. She was very slow to respond to my questions. Her speech was at a slowed pattern. It was also slurred at times while she was talking. And sometimes I would ask her a question and she was nonresponsive to the question I was asking, or the answer that she would give did not correspond to the question.

All I've been able to surmise, after watching Joe over a period of years, is that notwithstanding whatever medical conditions he may have, which almost nobody is qualified to diagnose, he's also plastered pretty much all day, every day, which is a judgment most adults are capable of making, and for which trained police officers can explain reliable criteria. Joe's speech patterns correspond to those of people with alcohol impairment.

My estimate is that Joe has been an alcoholic since his early teens, just like most of the Biden family, but was able to function well enough to conceal it as long as he was just a small-state senator or vice president.

(For that matter, my mother, on Nixon's right, worked for the Republican National Committee when we lived in Washington area. Part of her job was taking donors to meet Sen Dirksen, Republican leader at the time. She was instructed to explan to them that the senator was holding a glass of iced tea, not a mint julep. I would guess that Joe is just a creature of that environment.)

In fact, Joe has been known for "gaffes" over his whole career. I submit that the "gaffes" are the coonsequence of his lifelong normal state of intoxication.

Basically, my guess is that Joe is basically checked out, the duties of the presidency are an interruption and an annoyance, and when he's forced to perform them, he's plastered. I can't disagree that this is starting to look like a national security issue. At some point, Trump is going to call him out on that.