At tragic moments, like the deadly fires in Hawaii, our nation expects the president to speak to all of us and for all of us. The task is not a political one. He is not being asked to speak as the head of a political party or even the head of government. Those moments will come later. During a national tragedy, he needs to speak for the whole nation as its “head of state.”
President Roosevelt famously did that on December 8, 1941, referring to the bombing of Pearl Harbor previous day as a “date which will live in infamy” President Reagan did it after the Challenger disaster, a brilliant and touching memorial to the astronauts who died. Speaking from the Oval Office, he expressed what so many Americans felt:
The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives. We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them, this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye and “slipped the surly bonds of earth” to “touch the face of God.”
Not all presidents have such eloquence, or such delivery, but they all have the responsibility to speak to the nation, for the nation, in moments of shared grief. President Biden should have done so after the horrific fires on Maui. He needed only to speak for five minutes from the Oval Office. He missed that opportunity, just as he missed it on vacation, when reporters first asked about the fires. His embarrassing reply was “no comment.” Good heavens, man.
The reason he missed those opportunities is sadder yet. It wasn’t cruelty or indifference to Americans’ suffering. That’s not his failing. His failing is that he is no longer capable of performing the essential presidential duty of speaking clearly for the whole nation. His declining capacities make that painfully difficult. He’s clear at times. At others, he struggles and sometimes loses the struggle.
We saw that difficulty last weekend when he left the beach in Delaware and mumbled “no comment” to reporters asking about the fire. A college freshman taking her first communications course could have told him what to say.
- Offer his condolences to the families of the dead
- Say we are praying to find those still missing
- Commit our nation to help those who lost their homes, and, most of all
- Express the anguish, felt by all Americans, for those suffering or dead on Maui and their relatives and friends everywhere
That shouldn’t be hard for any president to say. And every president has a responsibility to say it. But Joe Biden couldn’t.
Why? The answer is that he is no longer good at making formal speeches, even brief ones, and far worse at saying anything off-the-cuff. Impromptu comments are a minefield for him, and he’s blown up on quite a few during his presidency.
True, Joe has been a gaffe machine all his life, but that didn’t stop him from speaking in the Senate or as vice president. What stops him now is that his cognitive issues have become more troublesome and more visible. Even a lapdog media can only hide them for so long. As for his White House aides, they would duct-tape his mouth closed if they could.
One sign of those troubles is that President Biden needs large cards to make even the most anodyne statements to the press when he greets foreign leaders. Another is that he has abandoned the traditional practice of answering at least two questions from the press after those meetings. Yet another is that he stumbles over the words and phrases his staff has typed out for him for various occasions. His last real press conference was held before television was in color.
These cognitive problems won’t get better. They will gradually get worse. They can’t be dismissed as the minor problems that face everyone growing old. Aging does cause some memory loss, of course, but the problems are more serious for some than for others. And they matter more for some, particularly those who hold powerful executive positions that require substantial information processing and difficult decision making. No position demands more than the presidency.
The problem is not simply Biden’s age. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Grassley are old, too, but they are intellectually sharp and fully capable of performing their jobs. Dianne Feinstein is not, a sorrowful sight after a long and distinguished career. She needs a conservator for her finances and a fellow senator to tell her “Vote yes” on bills. Senator Fetterman faces serious problems, too. He is only fifty-four, but it’s unclear if he can perform his job after a debilitating stroke and long hospitalization for depression. Mitch McConnell was just fine until a recent fall and concussion. After that, he inexplicably fell silent while speaking to the press. We don’t know the lasting effects.
Age is important, but what really matters is intellectual acuity and the ability to perform the job. Questions about that capacity can no longer be hidden about our current president, and they shouldn’t be hidden. Joe Biden’s inability to speak for the nation after the Maui fire is only the latest example. The “clean up on Aisle Four” after his impromptu comments are a daily task for his press office. Sadly, these cognitive challenges and their impact on his presidency won’t disappear. They will only grow worse.
