She was duly elected vice president, and the elected president is no longer competent to do the job. Simple as.
She was duly elected vice president, and the elected president is no longer competent to do the job. Simple as.
B efore last Thursday’s debate, it was possible to believe that Joe Biden has some good days and some bad days, that he perhaps keeps too light a schedule as president, and that he relies on his aides more than is healthy. That is, one could believe, as I did, that Joe Biden was too old and that he was unfit for the job and should step down but grant, generously, that he still was president in a meaningful way.
After Thursday’s debate and the subsequent splurge of reporting about the conditions that obtain in the White House, that’s no longer tenable. Nobody familiar with the perils of aging, dementia, and Alzheimer’s can look at Joe Biden and conclude that he is meaningfully exercising the full faculties necessary to be president.
Even Joe Scarborough, one of Biden’s arch defenders, while reeling from the debate, asked what company would keep as its CEO someone who had turned in a performance like Biden’s under pressure. The answer is no one. In fact, it’s much worse than that. Most Americans would not leave their young grandchildren alone with a grandparent who showed such a lack of comprehension and cognition.
Consider the reporting. The White House has said that Biden is “engaged” between the hours of 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. This is not a credible defense but a condemnation. Four reporters from Politico describe the functioning of the chief executive and his staff this way:
During meetings with aides who are putting together formal briefings they’ll deliver to Biden, some senior officials have at times gone to great lengths to curate the information being presented in an effort to avoid provoking a negative reaction.
“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” said one senior administration official. “It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing. Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared sh**less of him.”
Again, for anyone who has witnessed an elder’s struggling with senility, dementia, or Alzheimer’s, this kind of intemperate outburst is deeply familiar. But it is precisely those familiar with the rage of the aged and addled who know that such individuals are not in a position to lead.
Postdebate reporting has all but confirmed who those who should have known are. The New York Times reports that Hunter Biden was the strongest advocate in the Biden bubble for sticking it out. NBC News, quoting senior Democratic sources, says that Jill Biden, the president’s wife, will have decisive influence over Biden’s deliberations. And Axios reports that Jill Biden, her senior aide Anthony Bernal, and Joe Biden’s deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini have roped off the president, even from senior staff.
Those who exercise custodial care over the president of the United States see their power and influence over events enhanced the weaker he becomes. No wonder that the most emphatic endorsement for Biden’s remaining in office has come from his wife, who said, “Joe isn’t just the right person for the job, he’s the only person for the job.”
The fact is this: Joe Biden is not the only person for the job. No man or woman is. Our Constitution asks the people to elect a potential successor to every president, someone who can step in if the president dies or is incapacitated. We have two constitutional options for removing the president. He can be removed from office by a supermajority in Congress or, according to the 25th Amendment, by his own cabinet, pending approval by Congress. Until one of these remedies is applied and Kamala Harris is rightfully sworn in as president of the United States, we are in a constitutional crisis, a parody of a functioning democracy, and we will continue to project a provocative weakness on the world stage.
Consider the total insufficiency of the New York Times editorial board’s response to the debate over the weekend. In one breath, it calls on Joe Biden to drop out of the race because of his manifest unfitness. In the next, it holds out the inevitability of the newspaper’s endorsing him if his handlers manage to keep him in the race and breathing until November. One can claim that this is a consistently anti-Trump position, but it remains so only by sacrificing any pretense of democratic and accountable government.
We don’t know when Joe Biden’s presidency ended. All we know is that it has been usurped by a fraudulent use of executive power. Nobody serious about America’s institutions could want any other outcome in the next few days than that of Joe Biden’s resignation or removal in favor of his vice president, Kamala Harris. If there are political reasons that militate against wishing Harris to remain president, that is for the Democrats to decide at their nominating convention — or for the people in the general election a few months later.
Very likely, President Kamala Harris, like Lyndon Baines Johnson, would experience a major popularity boost on being elevated to high office — precisely because (as in LBJ’s case) the office would have been thrust on her by duty, and Americans would generously wish for the new president to thrive and be grateful for her service after a moment of severe danger and disruption. But that is utterly beside the point. Our nation requires a functioning executive. It is clear that he cannot govern us because his mental and physical condition now leave him under the custody of others who govern him — his son, his wife, and a couple of trusted aides whom the American people would not recognize by name. Luckily, our Constitution provides for such a situation. It’s time we made use of it.