Joe Biden stammered in boyhood, and mostly overcame it. Traces remain.
It is being weaponized against him.
"Let's state some facts. Biden loses his trend of thought often. He mixes up numbers often. He struggles to remember certain words. At times, he doesn't even know what day of the week it is, what state he is in, what office he is even running for."
Sean Hannity, on Fox
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| Tongue tied |
Stuttering appears in approximately 1% of humans and it has a strong genetic component. Joe Biden's uncle, on his mother's side, was called "Uncle Boo Boo." His uncle stuttered his whole life and had trouble saying his own name.
Joe Biden is open about having been a boyhood stutterer and The Atlantic magazine had a long feature story about it in the January-February issue, when Biden's chances for the Democratic nomination seemed the most remote. When confronted by Senator Kamala Harris about his busing record Biden did not parry the attack with an eloquent response about his leadership on race, or his evolution on the issue. He was tongue tied. Viewers interpreted this as guilt, as weakness. Harris won; Biden lost credibility.
The National Institutes of Health--the NIH--describes stuttering:
"Stuttering is a speech disorder characterized by repetition of sounds, syllables, or words; prolongation of sounds; and interruptions in speech known as blocks. An individual who stutters exactly knows what he or she would like to say but has trouble producing a normal flow of speech. These speech disruptors may be accompanied by struggle behaviors, such as rapid eye blinks or tremors of the lips."
We see remnants of that behavior in Joe Biden. It appears most frequently when he is confronted directly, attacked, when he feels on the defensive. The outburst in which he rapidly spurted out "You're a lying dog faced pony soldier!" came when he had a moment of frustration over questions from a citizen at a town meeting. We saw it again this week when a CBS reporter asked him if he had taken a cognitive test. How ridiculous, Biden thought. What an insult. Biden became tongue tied, and in frustration asked the reporter if he had taken a drug test himself and if he were a junky.
That was the occasion for Hannity and other Fox commentators call it disqualifying. Hannity continued,
"He's experiencing frequent bouts of irritability, anger, confusion. I'm not a doctor, I don't know what's going on with Biden, but it's obvious that something is off, very off. And even though he barely leaves his basement bunker, he looks exhausted."
Sarah Sanders, now a regular Fox contributor, piled onto the disqualification message of the next three months. Biden is a secret socialist under the influence of AOC and arsonists and will be helpless to resist them because his speech demonstrates his incapacity:
"Joe Biden can't get through a single interview, put one coherent sentence together and, yet they [the media] sit quietly. If he can't handle a couple of softball questions from reporters without losing his cool every single time he gets a little bit of pushback I think that's one of the big reasons that Donald Trump is going to do very well in November, because people at the end of the day know that Joe Biden is not ready to lead this country and certainly not ready to take on the challenges we face ahead."
Joe Biden has a challenge. Stuttering is not senility. Being tongue tied is not the same thing as being confused and addled. But Biden needs to show he has composure under pressure. Biden's greatest point of positive comparison with Trump is that Biden has quiet, low-drama experience and character, who can deal with adversity with calm assurance, in contrast with Trump's erratic, high-drama inexperience and narcissism.
Can Biden do this? Can an old dog learn new tricks? That is the challenge for Biden and his campaign staff.
Biden's vulnerability is apparent. Journalists, Republican officeholders, and most especially Trump himself will try to provoke Biden. He will get baited. Trump does not need training on how to insult, bait, troll, and get in the face of opponents. Biden is the one who needs training. If he can respond with amused dismissal when baited, he will negate that line of attack. He will show grace under pressure. He can be president. But if he blusters in frustration, he will make Trump's case.
Simple, right? Simple, yes, but not easy.
If a stutterer could simply get an amused, graceful answer to come trippingly to his lips, then he wouldn't be a stutterer.
8 comments:
Right, bad answer. It's extremely important that Biden differentiate himself from Trump on issues related to age. By falling into the trap, and that's exactly what it is, he makes the issue equivalent, which gives Trump the advantage. This means talking calmly in full sentences, and avoiding vernacular.
"No, I haven't taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? Come on, man. That's like saying you, before you got in this program, you're taking a test whether you're taking cocaine or not. What do you think, huh? Are you a junkie?"
If he can't figure out the difference between an elephant and a lion, I don't know what the hell he's talking about...I'm so forward-looking to have an opportunity to sit with the president or stand with the president and the debates," he said. "I am very willing to let the American public judge my physical as well as my mental fitness and to, you know, to make a judgment about who I am."
This answer could have been from Trump, and makes one cringe. My first impulse was to defend the VP, but this is clearly the latest in a string of unforced errors. This week Biden's lead eroded a bit more (6.5%), and I wonder if some Democrats are regretting their choice.
The Answer:
"Well, as I understand it if one is given this test it is because a person's physician or family member is concerned about them showing signs of dementia. No one has brought it up with me. I'm happy he did well on it and I'm sure it's a comfort to his children"
Too bad that some sour grapes Democrats are openly or secretly hoping Joe Biden loses for the satisfaction of saying, "I told you so!"
Enjoy the next four years if that happens. My response would be, "Happy now?"
Late in the game for a tiger to change his stripes. He should say ‘I yam what I yam.’
Biden is NOT a stutterer. He never had that label for the first 48 years of his political life. That disability is being used now as an excuse to cover-up for Biden's dementia. Biden is demented. DEMENTED. He's not a stutterer. That's an insult to true stutterers. Biden is losing his mind, he can't remember anything, and he's unfit to be president. That's why Biden is hiding in his cave. He can't face the world, and China and Russia would eat his lunch. Rather than have Biden run as a Trojan Horse candidate who would be replaced within one month after the election, democrats should remove demented Biden from the ticket now, and run a real candidate who can understand the issues. Run Kamala. Run Cuomo. Run Bernie. Run Warren. But don't run a demented old man. Demented Biden is an insult to the voters.
When I played football in high school, our quarterback was a stutterer. He stuttered often, under all settings. With one exception. When he was calling plays in the huddle, he never stuttered. Not even once. We noticed, but couldn't figure out why at the time. I think it was because the plays were called for him by someone else and he just had to repeat it, not think about it.
A classic on this is "Billy Budd" by Herman Melville. Budd, an innocent, strong, young sailor, has a stutter, which is exacerbated by intense emotion. He gets on the wrong side of Claggart, the ship's cruel master-at-arms and eventually can't suppress his anger and lashes out at Claggart, accidentally killing him.
Have we, as a people, become open-minded enough to accept that people have different challenges, as we all do...that each of us is "perfectly imperfect?" Many liberals I know vilify Trump as "evil" at worst and "childish" or "narcissistic" at best.
People are either showing you their love or showing you their wounds. Polar opposites on BOTH sides, generally show a remarkable lack of empathy. I guess that's why negative ads do so well among a population so ready to judge.
Andy Seles
Joe ba ba.ba Biden vs fascist clown vs bumbling Bush
Let Joe be Joe. Smiling. Charismatic. Empty vessel. Reassuring. Knowledgeable about government. Surrounded by thinkers and helpers. A good guy. What was Bush compared to Trump? Who is anyone compared to Trump?
Oh look someone has a lisp. Oh look one tooth is yellow. Oh look see he goes to the bathroom too often. Oh no he farted in public. Oh gee he spilled soup on his tie.
Is this the way we pick presidents? We get what we deserve.
Ralph
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