I've worked with patients in various stages of cognitive decline, from early onset of dementia where short term memory sometimes functioned but mostly didn’t, to severe dementia where communication was impossible and there was nothing left of the executive function in the brain.
None of the people I worked with were capable of running their own lives, let alone a country, which Biden was doing with astonishing skill, something Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson could have presented evidence of with a minimum of effort. Instead they went looking for a specific type of 'evidence' because it was clickbait.
Did the authors investigate the motives of the people who spoke to them? Did they question what they said? Did they look for evidence to show that Biden was cognitively sound, so they could in all conscience present an unbiased account?
Did they look at all of Biden's achievements right up until he stepped back from running? Did they ask all the people they spoke to why not a single one of them ever said anything? Did they remind their intended audience about Biden's speech difficulties and make sure they didn't conflate that with cognitive decline? Did the authors remind themselves of the same thing, in the interests of presenting a truthful account? Rhetorical questions, these.
Tapper and his fellow anchors at CNN have shamelessly used the channel to market the book as the truth. But it's not the truth. It is good clickbait though. If truth were an issue, Tapper and Thompson would have acknowledged that it’s a biased opinion and speculation based on the ‘evidence’ of anonymous sources. A right rabble rouser.
But more than anything else, why did these two choose to write this superficial tabloid-type book when what's really needed is an in-depth expose of Donald Trump, who is destroying America, causing chaos with the global economy and global alliances and is a thoroughly evil man with serious cognitive issues? Why publish a book that would give that thoroughly evil man a weapon against Democrats? I can’t think of a single rational reason other than the desire to raise their profile as authors and make a pile of money.
I don’t know anything about Alex Thompson, but I do know something about Jake Tapper. I thought he was doing a good job covering the mess that is the Trump administration, speaking truth to power without fear, which made me respect him as a journalist, particularly since Trump's witch hunt against freedom of the press is on full display. I'm disappointed. I really thought Tapper was better than this.
Fortunately, Joe Biden's cognitive capacity is also on full display. It's there for all to see, showing that even now he's not in a state of cognitive decline. Despite having cancer he's still functioning and looks physically fit. As for his legacy, it's already cast in stone. He will be remembered as the iconic president that he was.
