Frailty, thy name is Biden
Hugo Gurdon
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President Joe Biden’s great age and concomitant physical and mental decline have been subjects of intensifying contention since before Democrats first chose him as their leader in 2020. Back then, he was only — only! — 77 years old. Now, he is 81, and if he is reelected, he’ll swear his oath of office at the age of 82. If he makes it through a second term, he’ll quit the White House at 86.
This problem is, of course, well known. But it’s important to keep in mind that it can’t be resolved. It only gets worse. Even if he doesn’t worry about it, and apparently he doesn’t, it causes increasing anxiety within his party and among the 76% of voters who say Biden is too old to run again. So it should.
It was recently reported that the president’s staff members are so used to his boasts about being full of energy — he’s a congenital braggart — that they roll their eyes at his lack of self-knowledge. His aides and first lady Jill Biden do their best to manage his schedule and lighten his load. They want to reduce his commitments, so he doesn’t tire himself out, thereby cutting down on opportunities for him to embarrass himself and the rest of us at our choice of president.
Biden has always failed to see his own limitations, for example, by thinking he’s some sort of foreign policy genius when, as former President Barack Obama’s defense secretary, Robert Gates, observed, he has “been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades.” But however incompetent he has been throughout his five decades in politics, however poor his natural judgment, his creeping decrepitude makes matters worse.
Unlike 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was raging, there is no excuse for his hiding from public view. Staying in his Delaware basement or in the White House, running, as it were, in his carpet slippers, can no longer be presented to voters as leading by example.
The nation is entitled to expect its chief executive to brim with energy even if he has missed his afternoon nap. Biden’s appearances at public events frequently reveal his incapacities. He tends to jog to the podium before making a speech, presumably hoping to suggest a full reservoir of youthfulness and vigor. But an old guy attempting to seem young — whether with a face-lift, hair plugs, or a jaunty manner — does not carry conviction. The president’s dinky little steps draw attention to the incongruity between fact and presentation. Far from suggesting energy, the charade points to the vulnerability it is supposed to conceal.
It is not only on the domestic front or in the field of electoral politics that Biden’s aura of frailty is a problem. America’s enemies see it as clearly as voters do. They watch him and have decided he is an unthreatening old buffer. The leader of the United States does not scare them. So they push the limits and test him in every corner of the globe.
President Vladimir Putin, the Russian tyrant, launched his war against Ukraine not least because Biden had been appeasing him, and he calculated that he could get away with it. It is not clear that he was mistaken. Biden has armed Ukraine only enough to prevent it from losing, not sufficiently to allow it to win. As a result, the war has dragged on long enough for Republican isolationists to regard it as a “forever war” rather than one on which American global leadership hinges.
Likewise, Iran calculated that the Oct. 7 atrocities perpetrated by its proxy, Hamas, could derail progress toward rapprochement between Israel and its neighbors in the Middle East and that Biden would soon start caving to his left flank and join the chorus pressing Israel for a ceasefire that would let the terrorists stay in power in Gaza.
Tehran’s other proxies, the Houthis in Yemen, are attacking shipping in the Red Sea, calculating again that Biden will respond weakly. And lo, although the U.S. Navy has shot down Houthi drones, it has not attacked the terrorists’ missile sites or undertaken any military actions likely to deter further disruption of international trade.
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Farther east, Beijing is hounding and harassing our ally, the Philippines, out of its traditional territory and fishing grounds in the South China Sea, knowing Biden will weakly do nothing to prevent its aggression. Chinese President Xi Jinping also turned the screw on Biden when they met recently, pressing him to endorse Beijing’s eventual takeover of Taiwan, presumably by force, as would be necessary.
All over the world and here at home, Biden’s frailty, the expectation that he will not be up to the mark, his weakness and vacillation, make America, too, look feeble. Abroad, we don’t deter our enemies or encourage our allies. At home, we don’t look to our president for leadership but turn away from him in embarrassment.