“Here is a nice groom for you!” — “But he's old!” — “Well, it’s not about cooking him after all!” One thinks back of this dialogue from a popular Soviet movie about American life amid the recently released official report on US President Joe Biden’s state of health.
He underwent a comprehensive check-up at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. "Biden, 81, continues to have a stiff gait, but it has not worsened since last year," Dr. Kevin O'Connor wrote. The national leader is said to have peripheral neuropathy in both feet, gastroesophageal reflux, allergies and spinal arthritis that are treated with medication. "The President is doing well and his physical examination this year did not reveal any new problems," the doctor went on to say. Biden has been “happily married for 46 years” and exercises at least five days a week. "He continues to be fit for duty and fully executes all of his responsibilities without any exemptions or accommodations," O'Connor concluded.
The president's health has been a matter of scrutiny this year because he runs for re-election as the oldest president in US entire history. His obvious signs of age-related decrepitude have long made him an object of both ridicule and sympathy.
The issue was actively fomented by the American and world media back in course of the 2020 campaign. Today, Biden’s physical condition has aroused particular interest following a recent report by Special Counsel Robert Hur, who investigated his handling of classified documents. In that report, Mr. Hur worried that jurors would see Biden “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”, preventing them from bringing in the verdict of guilty. Is it a coincidence that the Special Counsel’s viral statement entailed Biden’s medical check-up that ostensibly found no serious problems in him?
Biden was not long in lambasting the special counsel. "My memory is fine. I’m the most qualified person in this country to be president of the United States and finish the job I started," he said, as quoted by Bloomberg. And now the president’s statement about his health has been reaffirmed by examination results. Earlier, Biden also repeatedly said he was okay, and the Democrats defended him by calling him "sound of body and astute in interaction."
There is a certain eye-catching circumstance here. The summary published by Dr. O'Connor reflects a lengthy and detailed examination. But, "the president, his advisers and a team of 20 physicians ultimately declined to provide detailed information about Mr. Biden’s cognitive abilities," as The New York Times notes. “Doctors use their discretion in providing assessment tests, and not all doctors perform them”. The outlet quotes director of the Center for Cognitive Neurology at NYU Langone Health Dr. Thomas Wisniewski as saying: “For the physician who interacts with a patient on a regular basis, it is perfectly valid for the physician to say, «I can assess the mental status on a daily basis». But not if they see each other once a year.” In other words, the council of doctors who examined Biden has deliberately omitted the cognitive test issue.
But what do they imply when saying that Biden is "apparently healthy" despite his age? Everyone sees a decrepit person in the White House who, as can be seen from numerous video recordings, has no idea of what is happening around him and what people talk about in general. The one whom Trump nicknamed "Sleepy Joe" has been found "fit for duty."
This points to Biden’s unwillingness to quit the presidential race, especially amid the Democrats’ lack of someone to replace him. They once again started dragging out narrow-minded and ambitious Kamala Harris to public events, showing she is still in the service, and everything is fine about the country’s leadership.
Biden apparently outweighed everyone else in the Democrats' internal power struggle. But are there any others at all? The American “deep state”, of which the Democratic Party is a visible superstructure, has been suffering a clear crisis of the genre; it has no “option B” to be launched in case of Biden’s obvious inability to endure a second successive term. Thus, the Democrats have an empty subs' bench. Hence Biden’s seemingly reliable medical certificate.
Meanwhile, the American and British press quote leading American gerontologist Jay Olshansky with the University of Illinois as saying that “today his chances of surviving through a second term in office are close to 75 percent (about 10 percent better survival than for an average man his age). Similar, although slightly less favorable survival prospects are present for Trump.”
In other words, while wishing Biden a long and happy life as a person, one cannot defy forecasts of a 25-percent chance that, once elected, he may leave office before 2028. Then he will be replaced by Kamala Harris, who is running for Vice President and will inherit the helm if Biden takes early retirement following his November victory. However, her polls are slipping steadily — in February, Harris enjoyed support of a mere 28 percent against the 53 percent of those viewing her negatively, which is four points less against June last year.
Not the best makeshift, though we hardly know much of what is going on in Washington’s backroom politics.
