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Wednesday, July 29, 2020

We Need to Talk About Joe (Judean Rose)

Joe Biden is ahead of President Trump in key battleground states, according to a new Fox News poll, and the lead is significant. Biden passed Trump by 11 percentage points in Pennsylvania, 13 points in Minnesota, and 9 points in Michigan. The question is why, considering a Rasmussen poll released June 29, found that 38% of voters believe that Joe Biden has dementia. That’s almost four out of ten voters.

It’s no secret the mainstream media is pulling for Joe Biden. They want Donald Trump dethroned and a Democrat—any Democrat—installed in the White House. In spite of this fact, they too, cannot help but notice Joe Biden’s little (and not so little) brain farts. 

The media has tried hard to recast Biden’s strange utterings as “gaffes.” See, for instance, here, here, here, and here. But it’s not a “gaffe” when he falls asleep during Hillary’s endorsement. 
It's not a gaffe when he has his wife do the talking so he won’t have to speak. 

It's not a gaffe when he has brain freeze. 

Not a gaffe, but a memory issue, when he forgets the President’s name.

Especially not when the name of the president he served under is forgotten not once, but several times. 
Which is why Obama told Joe Biden he didn’t have to do this—didn’t have to run for president. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

Joe Biden’s brain issues, of course, may not actually be dementia. The fact is, the presidential candidate has had surgery for not one but two aneurysms. Remember the bloody eye incident when Biden’s eye literally filled with blood on live television?

The hubbub surrounding this event prompted Biden to talk about his experiences with brain surgery in 1988. From the Washington Examiner:

“I ended up with what they call a cranial aneurysm,” Biden said at a campaign event on Friday. “I had to be rushed to a hospital in the middle of a snowstorm, and the fact is, the president was nice enough to offer a helicopter to get me there. I couldn’t go up because of the altitude. My fire company got me down in time for [a] 13-hour operation and saved my life.”

Biden suffered the burst aneurysm in 1988, when he was a Delaware senator. Believing that he was close to death, a Catholic priest was preparing to administer Biden's last rites. Surgeons clipped a second aneurysm before it bust a few months later.

A later piece goes into a bit more detail:

At the time of Biden’s brush with death in 1988, his wife, Jill Biden, feared that he would never be the same. In a forthcoming autobiography, “Where the Light Enters," Jill recounts Joe's doctor telling the family that there was a significant chance he’d have permanent neurological damage, particularly after he suffered a second aneurysm, a condition in which an artery becomes weak and bulges out.

"Our doctor told us there was a 50-50 chance Joe wouldn't survive surgery," she wrote. "He also said that it was even more likely that Joe would have permanent brain damage if he survived. And if any part of his brain would be adversely affected, it would be the area that governed speech."

This is a candid account of what happened back in 1988. But does this past history have implications for the present? And are Biden and his wife still being upfront with the public today? From the same piece:

The last time Biden disclosed information about his health was in 2008 when Dr. Matthew Parker, a physician the Obama campaign selected when Biden was the running mate, spoke to the press. Biden’s actual doctor, John Eisold, the physician who attended to Biden and the rest of Congress, was not the one to present the medical records...Parker said he didn’t know whether Biden had more aneurysms, and said “everything that could be done is being done.”

From the information revealed, it was not clear how often Biden has been screened for aneurysms, and there wasn't any other information provided when he was vice president. In contrast, records show that Barack Obama had at least four medical checkups during his presidency.

No law requires presidents, vice presidents, or candidates to have a medical checkup or to disclose what comes of it.

The article also makes the point that if Joe Biden had two aneurysms, he could well have another:

Dr. Babu Welch, a neurological surgeon with University of Texas-Southwestern’s O’Donnell Brain Institute, said that people who have had one aneurysm can always have another. People are supposed to undergo regular screenings shortly after they have an aneurysm, but then can space them out further as time goes on, he said.

Dr. Gavin Britz, director of the Houston Methodist Neurological Institute, said his research has revealed that people have a decrease in life expectancy after an aneurysm. The key, he said, is to make sure to catch them before they rupture.

The New York Times asks whether Joe Biden might have developed another aneurysm going so far as to suggest that having had two aneurysms, Biden is actually “more likely” to have a third:

A question arises: Has Mr. Biden developed a new aneurysm over the last two decades that could burst?

Doctors, who long thought that berry aneurysms were a once-in-a-lifetime event, now generally believe that they can recur. About 5 percent or less of patients who have had a berry aneurysm develop new ones at the original site or elsewhere in the brain.

“Over the last two decades,” said Dr. Robert F. Spetzler of the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, “we have learned much more about aneurysms, and the fact is that when you have had one aneurysm, you are more likely to develop another one. Although the likelihood is very low, it does exist.”

Are Joe’s “gaffes” a result of his aneurysm, or from his brain surgeries? And what would happen if another aneurysm were to burst while Joe was in office? That last may be a bit difficult to predict, but Wikipedia offers a history of what happened at that time, pointing out that Biden had a serious complication. We also learn that back then, Biden was sidelined from work for a full seven months, and that he was told his chances for a full recovery were somewhat slim (emphasis added):

In 1988, Biden suffered two brain aneurysms, one on the right side and one on the left. Each required surgery with high risk of long-term impact on brain functionality. In February 1988, after suffering from several episodes of increasingly severe neck pain, Biden was taken by long-distance ambulance to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and given lifesaving surgery to correct an intracranial berry aneurysm that had begun leaking. While recuperating, he suffered a pulmonary embolism, a major complication.

Another operation to repair a second aneurysm, which had caused no symptoms but was at risk of bursting, was performed in May 1988. The hospitalization and recovery kept Biden from his duties in the Senate for seven months.

In retrospect, Biden's family came to believe the early end to his presidential campaign had been a blessing in disguise, for had he still been campaigning in 1988, he might well not have stopped to seek medical attention and the condition might have become unsurvivable. In 2013, Biden said, "they take a saw and they cut your head off" and "they literally had to take the top of my head off." He also said he was told he would have less than a 50% chance of full recovery.

Biden has, until now, failed to share any appraisal of his cognitive state. And some voters may be getting nervous about that with November not so far away. The Hill had a piece in early July entitled, “Joe Biden must release the results of his cognitive tests — voters need to know.” The piece references more voter polls:

A recent Zogby poll found that 55 percent of likely voters surveyed thought it was “much more” and “somewhat more likely” that Biden is in the early stages of dementia, while 45 percent thought it was less likely. That number included 56 percent of independents and 32 percent of Democrats.

More worrisome for Biden, perhaps, is that about 60 percent of young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 thought it likely that Biden is suffering early-onset dementia, along with 61 percent of Hispanics. The good news is that only 43 percent of blacks doubted Biden’s mental capacity.

Another piece, from Chicago Sun Times (July 26), asks, “Can Joe Biden keep it together?” and speaks of “whispered doubt” suggesting the public may be concerned about Biden’s fitness for office:

There is a dreadful possibility, a whispered doubt that lurks at every Biden appearance.

“I watched, and sometimes cringed, at his performances in debates and other public appearances,” Laura Washington writes. “Biden stumbled over and mangled names, facts and concepts. At times, he seemed confused.”

It is only natural that Trump supporters would attempt to capitalize on Joe’s oopsies. Hence we have this ad from the Committee to Defend the President which speaks not about “gaffes” but asks if Joe Biden “has the mental capacity to keep America safe,” and then comes right out with it: “Does Joe Biden have dementia?”

Politico (July 3) emphasized the meanness of the dementia accusations referring to this election cycle as “The Dementia Campaign.”  An excerpt:

Just listen to Tucker Carlson on Wednesday night, the day after Joe Biden’s big Super Tuesday victory and the victory speech in which he was momentarily confused over which side of the podium his wife and sister were standing. “As a smart friend said last night, Joe Biden has spent his entire life trying to succeed in presidential politics,” the Fox News host chortled, “and now he has: Too bad he’s not there to enjoy it. Pretty funny.”

Politico wants to de-emphasize the dementia/brain damage and shift the focus to the mild impairment of age, stressing that we have a geriatric political culture:

The issue is especially acute now that so much power in American government is held by people older than 65. While rates of dementia are going down gradually in the United States, 65 is the age at which 20 to 25 percent of people have mild cognitive impairment and 10 percent have dementia, according geriatric researcher Kenneth Langa at the University of Michigan. Six members of the Supreme Court are over 65, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will turn 80 on March 26, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell last month turned 78.

Joe’s brain issues, however much the liberal left wants to distract us, make it really difficult to resist watching and laughing at his latest “gaffes” such as the one about nurses blowing into his nostrils to get him moving.

That “go home and get me pillows,” sends me into giggle fits, each and every time. But then I feel a little bit mean and even voyeuristic. And I can’t help but think: It’s not nice they’re putting this brain damaged guy out there like this. Why are they doing this: running this guy with brain damage?

I know what the conspiracy theorists think: if Biden wins the presidency, which he might win in spite of dementia, because he’s the Not Trump, he won’t be the one making the decisions. Instead, he will be a puppet. The Manchurian Candidate come to life. 

So who is really running the show? Deep State? Soros? Obama?

Someone/something else? And what does this mean for Israel, and for the world at large? 

Will Biden hang in there, or will the pressure and stress become too much, say during a debate with President Trump? And if it does become too much for the man who has twice undergone the neurosurgeon's knife, what happens next? Who will step in and take over the show?

Your guess is as good as mine. Which means that about all we can do is sit back and watch this public circus with guilty pleasure and not a little incredulity at the fact that, should nothing and no one intervene, the Democrats will vote for Joe Biden, despite his cognitive issues, come November. 

Because they definitely choose brain damage over Trump. 

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