Joe Biden As Of 2022

I happened to be watching a program about space travel on TV over the weekend, and it included the clip above, which I was also able to find on YouTube. It shows Joe receiving a NASA briefing on the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope on July 11, 2022, less than two years ago. Compared to the Joe Biden we've come to know more recently, I think it's remarkable: he's engaged, on point, speaking clearly, not slurring, not mumbling, getting all the words right. At 1:34:

. . . light where stars were born, and from where they die. Light from the oldest galaxies, the oldest documented light in the history of the universe, from over 13 billion -- let me say that again -- 13 billion years ago. It's hard to even fathom. Tomorrow when this image is shared with the world, it'll be a historic moment.

Clearly this was written for him. But there are also Bidenisms, the fascination with a big number, the need to rephrase the remark about light -- but some of these words are tonguetwisters, Joe has never been great at enunciation, yet he gets them all out clearly. In far too many episodes throughout his presidency, he's struggled to read from the teleprompter, yet here he's able to do it quite well, and in a relatively minor forum.

At 2:30, the camera backs off to show him seated at a desk, facing a NASA screen and watching pictures apparently with an audience of NASA munchkins, which is an unusual setting, and I'm assuming that the seated position is some sort of planned accomodation by his handlers, possibly to keep him from getting tired out during his speech -- but whatever it is, we've got to allow that it's working here.

This brings me to my puzzle: what did they do right this time that they've almost never been able to do before or since? The clip below, for instance, outlines Joe's biggest gaffes in 2021, the year before his July 11, 2022 NASA appearance:

In fact, another video that claimed to show Joe slurring during a speech on July 4, 2022, just a week before the NASA clip, generated controversy. Since then, of course, it's become much harder to claim that videos showing Joe slurring have been doctored. Still, 2022 was late in the game -- how did they get Joe to put on a near-flawless peformance for the NASA ceremony, if even for less than ten minutes? And the clip below is apparently from April of that year:

From the start:

We're gonna seize their yachts, their luxury homes, their ill-begotten gains -- Putin's klep-to-cra-cy -- yeah. Klep -- the guys who are in the kleptocracies. Heheheheheh.

This brings me back to the point I've frequently made here, that hypercorrection, overly careful speech, and slurring are signs that someone is drunk. For a cop on traffic patrol, they're probable cause for sobriety testing. And if Joe is, as he showed during those 2022 episodes, able to turn the intoxicated speech on and off, what's happening there? At the NASA peformance, something was different. If it was some new meds, why don't they give those to him all the time? If they were able to keep him away from alcohol, how did they do that, and why do they seem to be so seldom successful?

I'm back to The King's Speech, where the speech therapist Lionel Logue is able to demonstrate to George VI that there are circumstances where he can speak without stammering -- when he's singing, when he can't hear himself talking, or when he's shouting cusswords. All of these things suggest causes and cures, even for heads of state. I still wonder if Joe's handlers could keep him off the sauce, there might be a big improvement. Joe, of course, has repeatedly claimed he's never had a drink. And Uncle Bosey was eaten by cannibals.

All I can surmise is there's a lot we aren't being told.