I would like to expand on a diary I published earlier this week in response to Adam Serwer’s “Biden Must Resign” opinion piece in the Atlantic. Given the number of recommendations it received, it is gratifying to see that it was apparently well received. My sincere thanks to those readers for their recommendations and for their many kind and often insightful remarks.
Let me begin by thanking Lawrence O’Donnell for being one of the few television anchors willing to stand up for President Biden over the last couple of weeks as the President continues to receive withering blows from the media and increasingly from other power players in the democratic party. The narrative that is being presented is one of a president on the verge of repeated, catastrophic failure.
He is not the faltering old man as they want to present him, and I am going to tell you why here.
But first, let me briefly touch on what we should all be focused on instead of President Biden’s ability to serve: Project 2025 and the impending coronation of an authoritarian, christofascist dictator in our country.
Last night the Lincoln Project’s Reed Galen put Project 2025’s objective in clear perspective with this quote:
“Project 2025 is simply this. It is destroying the parts of government that help people and empowering the parts of government that control and destroy people.”
That quote is something you can easily share with anyone you speak with about Project 2025.
Now on to the subject at hand. For the last two weeks the media has continued to bang the drum calling for President Biden to step away from the race, downplaying the difficulty of coming up with a replacement candidate that the very fractious democratic party can agree upon. Even worse, the media is largely ignoring the very real legal challenges the republicans are planning to put forth in swing states if the democrats try to replace the Biden name on the ballot, adding additional chaos to what already promises to be a chaotic challenge to the election and its results.
Amplifying the microscopic nature of the media spotlight, they have selected seconds long video clips of the President to demonstrate that he has lost his mojo, while citing selective polls that indicate the election is already lost. I’ll get into those details and their deceptions in a subsequent post but today I want to talk about the real President Biden that the media does not want you to see.
While that media has complained that President Biden is in hiding, in fact, he has been pursuing a rigorous schedule of meetings, rallies and speeches shown below where we will see, at 81 years old, a vibrant and well spoken president who moves well and demonstrates a stamina that belies his age and the image put forth by his detractors.
On July 7th, President Biden spoke very capably at a campaign rally in Wisconsin (the speech runs from 15:11 to 34:30) in a teleprompter assisted speech. By the way, there is no disgrace in using a teleprompter — Tr*^p does it all the time and then riffs on the side with his flights of fancy and idiocy. Teleprompters are used by politicians and other public speakers worldwide and there are hardly any complaints about their use there. It is a standard tool for public speaking.
He delivered remarks at the 75th Anniversary of NATO. Again a solid teleprompter speech filled with vigor and fire. (Remarks are from 17:30 to 30:30) In addition to his presentation, President Biden is meeting with world leaders in days long schedules that would be demanding for a person half his age.
Yesterday, in-between day long meetings with NATO leaders, the President took time out to visit the national headquarters of the AFL-CIO where he moved through the crowd, shaking hands and greeting people before giving an extemporaneous speech without any assistance from a teleprompter in his support of the union and their role in the American economy. (His entrance begins at 0:40 and his speech continues through 7:28)
President Biden Attends Meeting With Union Leaders at AFL-CIO
How much of this is carried by the mainstream media on the air so that people can see the real President Biden?
Not very much.
It also appropriate to mention that the President takes an occasional bike ride. Though such rides are leisurely, hardly the pace of the Tour de France, they do require balance, stamina and coordination that would be challenging for many over 70, much less an 81 year old. In early June of this year, just a month ago, he was riding in Rehoboth Beach with his son Hunter.
The job of the President of the United States is a demanding job that requires long hours and stamina and President Biden demonstrates every day that he can do the job by going out every day and doing the job. I would like to mention one thing however that never gets reported and it relates to his stamina.
Public speaking requires more energy and stamina than standing up in front of a crowd and talking into a microphone. Public speaking is energizing. Your adrenaline starts pumping, speeding up your heartbeat and increasing your blood pressure. This is particularly true when the speech is a barn-burner, typical of many political speeches. When you walk away from that speech and your body slows back down, you feel real exhaustion. That President Biden is able to give these speeches, day in and day out tells me he not only the mental capacity, but also the stamina and is more than capable of carrying out his duties.
Before leaving this topic, we should mention medical evidence of his physical condition, health and mental stability. A couple of days ago, White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre was ruthlessly pummelled by CBS News reporter Ed O’Keefe over the insinuation that a neurologist was repeatedly visiting the White House to treat President Biden.
This confrontation led to the not widely know revelation that the White House publishes, at the request of President Biden, a current summary of the President’s health each year after his annual physical is completed. This five page 2024 health summary was written by Dr. Kevin O’Connor, Physician to the President. He reported on a number of medical conditions that were being monitored for the President, including:
- Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA), New, stable
- Non-Valvular Atrial Fibrillation (A-fib), stable
- Hyperlipidemia, stable
- Gastroesophageal Reflux, stable
- Seasonal Allergies, stable
- Stiffened Gait (Moderate to Severe Degenerative Osteoarthritic Change/Spondylosis), stable
- Sensory Periphera lNeuropathy of Feet, stable
- Skin Cancer Surveillance, routine
- Optometry Surveillance, routine
- Dental Surveillance, routine
President Biden’s Current Health Summary 2024
In response to the fracas in the White House briefing room, Dr. O’Connor released an explanation that the neurology consultant who visited the White House eight times this year examined the President on only one of those visits during his regular annual physical. The other visits were to service the medical needs of individuals among the “thousands of patients of the White House Medical Unit.” The results of that examination during the physical were described as:
“An extremely detailed neurologic exam was again reassuring in that there were no findings which would be consistent with any cerebellar or other central neurological disorder, such as stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or ascending lateral sclerosis, nor are there any signs of cervical myelopathy. This exam did again support a finding of peripheral neuropathy in both feet. No motor weakness was detected. He exhibits no tremor, either at rest or with activity. He demonstrates excellent fine motor dexterity. But a subtle difference in heat/cold sensation could be elicited as it was last year. This heat/cold sensation deficit was detected a couple of inches higher on his ankle/calf this year, which is not unexpected. There may; in fact, be day to day subjective variation of these findings, as during last year’s exam, this area of sensation deficit was actually found to be smaller than the year before.”
Background on reasons for Dr. Cannard’s visits to the White House
We are going to have two more immediate opportunities to watch the President, unscripted in the coming days. Tonight he will hold a press conference at the conclusion of the NATO conference at 6:30 PM EDT and on Monday he will sit down with NBC news anchor Lester Holt at 9:00 PM EDT. Again, I have no doubt that President Biden will handle both appearances with his usual grace, intelligence and charm.
On a final note, if Willie Nelson, at 91 years of age can get up on the stage and perform after being ordered by his doctors to take a couple of weeks of rest, I am confident that President Biden can stay the course and defeat Donald Tr*^p and the huns who are knocking at the gate.
Before I close, let me share why I believe President Biden is going to win and win at historic levels in November.
As I discussed in the initial diary, the polls are wrong and they have repeatedly and consistently underperformed actual election day results by 6 to 8 points or more. I intend to address this as the subject of a future diary. I am not a pollster, nor do I play one on TV, but aside from the points I mentioned in the previous diary, I have a theory about why the polls are missing the mark by such a large margin.
The first is the Dobbs voters. These are the people who do not normally vote but who came out of the woodwork in droves in rebellion to the Dobbs decision whenever an abortion proposition was on the ballot. Abortion is going to be on the ballot in November and these Dobbs voters will strike again. The second, and perhaps more important group are the non-dictatorship voters. Again, these are people who ordinarily don’t pay attention to the political process but they are going to come out and vote a resounding NO to the right wing’s plans to take over the country and implement a dictatorship. It is possible that a majority of voters in the blue tsunami that is percolating among the public will not be voting FOR a candidate, whether it be Biden, Harris or someone else, so much as AGAINST a candidate and that candidate is Donald J. Tr*^p. That is purely my speculation but we will see how it turns out in November.
Let’s show our unanimous support for President Biden and focus on the existential threat that we face from an extreme right wing faction that seeks to take over our country.
Vote Biden! Vote Blue up and down the line!