Joe Biden’s birthday conflagration
Byron York
JOE BIDEN’S BIRTHDAY CONFLAGRATION. On Monday evening, President Joe Biden’s X account posted a photo of the president sitting before a birthday cake with what appeared to be a million candles on it. Well, not a million candles, but 81, in honor of Biden’s 81st birthday. Having so many flaming candles gave the impression of one large fire atop the cake, with flames licking toward the ceiling. As birthday cakes go, it was an inferno, a firestorm, a conflagration. The fire appeared big enough to set off smoke detectors and send Secret Service agents scrambling to ensure the president’s safety. It was, in all, an amazing picture.
Could there be any more effective statement that the president is very, very old? The photo was such a powerful expression of Biden’s age that outsiders immediately wondered how in the world the White House came to release it. After all, polls show majorities of voters, Democrats and Republicans, believe the president is too old to serve a second term, even as Biden gears up his reelection bid. Nevertheless, the White House posted the picture. Who knows? Maybe David Axelrod or the Republican National Committee got temporary control of the Biden X account. In any event, the phrase “campaign malpractice” does not even begin to describe what the White House did.
It does, however, provide an occasion to go over some public opinion about Biden’s age. Back in August, when Biden was just 80, the Associated Press asked 1,165 adults nationwide whether they believed Biden or former President Donald Trump was “too old to effectively serve another 4-year term as president, or not?” Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed said Biden was too old. That number included 69% of Democrats who said Biden was too old. (In contrast, a relatively lower 51% overall said Trump was too old.)
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In September, a CNN poll asked whether Biden “has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively as president.” Seventy-four percent of respondents said no, he does not — virtually a mirror image of the Associated Press result. Other polls reported similar findings.
The remarkable thing about all this concern is that voters have always known Biden’s age. He was born Nov. 20, 1942 — a fact that was well known when he was elected president nearly 80 years later, in November 2020. Voters have always known the presidency is a four-year term. And voters have always known that unless there are some very unusual circumstances, presidents seek reelection. So on Election Day 2020, voters knew that if they elected Biden at age 78, then he would likely want to serve as president until he was 86, which would be unprecedented in American history.
Voters could have read this, from April 7, 2019: “Face it: Biden and Bernie are too old to be president.” The article, by me, focused on Biden and Democratic rival Bernie Sanders, who is a year older than the president. “The issue is more than just whether each candidate might be a voice from the past or out of touch with today’s concerns,” the article said. “The issue is whether they are simply too old to handle the rigors of the presidency.”
Nearly three years of a Biden presidency have answered that question with a resounding “yes.” The president has slowed down before the nation’s eyes. He loses his train of thought and has trouble completing sentences. He appears frail and sometimes walks in a shuffle. A week ago, after interviews with lots of Democrats, Politico’s Jonathan Martin wrote of Biden’s reelection effort: “The oldest president in history when he first took the oath, Biden will not be able to govern and campaign in the manner of previous incumbents. He simply does not have the capacity to do it, and his staff doesn’t trust him to even try.”
Biden has tried to deflect concern by joking about his age. It doesn’t really work. This morning Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) posted on X, “Biden’s age jokes would be funnier if his severe mental decline wasn’t so alarming. Biden can’t handle the job of Commander in Chief today. The idea he could continue to serve until *2029* is preposterous.”
And that’s why the picture of the birthday cake conflagration is so damaging, such a grievous self-inflicted wound. One doesn’t have to read a poll or an article or even a tweet to get the point.
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