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This doesn't make the point Eigen thinks it makes. Biden was not senile in 2020! Compare his 2020 debates to his 2024 debate. In 2020 down due to age, sure, but not senile. And there were many reports during the first half of his presidency that was capably acting as the president. I think understanding and predicting is just difficult, and it's easy to blame other peoples' mistakes on bias when you're making the same mistake inverted. No incentives or experience exist that prepares most people for accurate predictions about politics, and both Biden and Trump's staff are strongly incentivized to mislead you, and just as reversed stupidity isn't intelligence, the truth isn't halfway in between both sides' propaganda!
Hmm, true. I wouldn't call Biden senile yet. I'd call him
old, with a scoop ofburgeoning senility*. I'm not going to dig thru 2020 stuff, but he was more capability for sure. I'm also not going to take Mr. Cluchey's account as gospel. His plea for media to "demonstrate the clarity and capacity to do their job" makes my eyes roll. Dan, too, apparently ignored evidence of Biden's ability in the past year or more and laughed at the media as they tried to "do their job." How happy would Dan have been if they did their job, the Whitehouse invited them to do their job, and came to a similar conclusion in, say, November 2023? Do we trust Dan here to spill the beans if he did see something concerning?The media is building and driving a narrative. They often do so haphazardly, because that's what they do. While a hostile media might be upsetting to Biden administration, perhaps they could do a better job inviting media scrutiny to get to the truth-- if the truth is he's mostly fine, most of the time, for most of the day. We don't know to what extent the narrative is true, beyond what we see.
Age focused political attacks are destined to become true at some point. We can say AOC has cognitive impairment due to age, then cash in on that attack 40 years down the line. When Trump starts avoiding public appearances, events, and gathers a posse to surround him to get to and from Air Force One we will hear about it for days.
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