There goes Joe, again
It’s hard to imagine a worse candidate description: “Well meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” It would not even grab an entry-level govt job. Not even in a banana republic. And yet, this is a credible conclusion about the man holding ‘the most powerful job in the world’. Of course Joe Biden has dismissed the special counsel’s report to this effect: “They don’t know what they’re talking about.” But does he?
Confusing Mitterand with Macron and Merkel with Helmut Kohl are two recent gaffes. He drops these more regularly than Orry’s celebrity hugs. When he became US president he was the oldest person to have done so. Before him, that title rested with Trump. Both see themselves as sort of super-agers. And Biden’s strategists might still believe they can neutralise the memory-bomb. Their strategy? If our guy was old before the memory-bomb went off and he is old afterwards, nothing has changed. Isn’t the country used to him stumbling about in public anyway?
But high-octane elections have turned on much less. As Americans look at a war-torn world they are being told their commander-inchief misremembers key details of conflicts. Not to mention when he took up which leadership position or when his son died. Biden’s key campaign card is that Trump is too dangerous. But is having a man with “significantly limited” memory hanging around the nuclear button anyone’s idea of safety?
This piece appeared as an editorial opinion in the print edition of The Times of India.
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