Biden was a total disaster in his debate with Trump. He kept confusing numbers, names, and timelines. He mumbled and rambled. He generally failed to confront the steady stream of lies from Trump. But what freaked out so many of us was not that he performed poorly, anyone can have a bad night, it was the particular way he performed poorly. He looked like the doddering and senile old man that the Republicans have claimed he is, and we all began to wonder if they were right. Is he really incapable of forming a clear thought and following it through? Is he really unqualified to carry out the job of president?
The positive side of recognizing what threw many of us, and most of the media, into a panic, is that those questions are answerable. Biden is out in public a lot and will be more so as the campaign goes on. In the State of the Union address he disproved the Republican picture of him, and it wasn’t just because he had a prepared speech. His quick and stinging response to hecklers demonstrated his mental sharpness and ability to respond quickly to unexpected challenges.
He was undeniably awful in the debate, but later the same night, in a North Carolina rally, he was clear, articulate and strong. I was among those that started to wonder during the debate if he really was senile and if we needed another candidate, but Biden has recovered from that disaster and so have I. I don’t know what happened to him that night, but I can now see that it was a bad night, not the onset of dementia. He immediately showed us that this performance was simply a poor performance and not a mental decline. He has months yet to demonstrate, both through other public appearances and through effective governance, that he remains a strong and effective leader, in stark contrast to Trump.