Prolific and historically literate EA commenter Steve-O-in NJ has been uncharacteristically scarce around these parts of late, but when he does weighed-in the quality of his commentary remains stellar. I’m going to have his Comment of the Day on the post “The Sequel to “Is It Ethical to Continue to Slam Former President Biden Now That It Has Been Revealed That He Has Metastatic Prostate Cancer?”— Unethical Quote of the Week: David Axelrod” kick off what bids fair to end up as “Why the Democratic Party Has Disqualified Itself From National Leadership” Monday.
Every single Democrat who runs for office should be confronted with the fact that their party spent four years defiling the Constitution and ignoring the will of their own voters. They should be asked, again and again, how do you dare associate yourself with a party that would do this? What’s your excuse? Why should any voter trust anyone who runs as a Democrat now? What does your party stand for, if it would exploit a man it chose to have the most challenging leadership responsibilities in the world knowing he wasn’t mentally able to do the job, as a means of letting backroom, unelected ideologues and partisan hacks secretly chart U.S. policy? Every Democrat office-holder or candidate should be forced to either condemn his or her party or beg for forgiveness and a second chance.
And the public’s response to their entreaties should be the same as mine: “Never!”
Here’s Steve-O…
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There’s no way I can be other than disgusted by this manipulative tactic by the same party who regularly bashed Reagan for being a senile old man while in office and came up with at least 20 ways to attack Trump as unfit. Reagan stumbled twice in eight years, once after being shot and having major surgery, again after seven years in office plus that and according to the left he was unfit the entire time, despite no one from the White House staff and no personal or government physician coming forward to verify any allegation of senility. No one unbiased has come forward to say Trump is unfit. His biased niece doesn’t count, and neither do disgruntled former employees. Former vice president Pence, former ambassador Nikki Haley, and former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo all have nothing to lose by spilling now, and every reason to do it after being publicly shut out of this administration, but none of them have.
Yet we all watched Biden deteriorate before our eyes, to the point where he could barely walk and couldn’t answer even softball questions, and the left tried to gaslight this nation by saying it was all Republican dirty tricks. This, the party of Dick Tuck, the original political dirty tricks man, whose members regularly insult the GOP as being a party made up of idiots and morons, had the audacity to accuse the same party of being masters of dirty tricks. This, the media who parlayed a single stumble, a golf swing, and a tennis serve gone wrong into a lasting image of Gerald Ford as an oaf and a klutz who couldn’t do anything right, had the audacity to bury multiple stumbles, an obvious old-guy shuffle, multiple obvious needs to be shown where to walk after initially going the wrong way, inability to answer easy questions, and a hundred other obvious signs of deterioration and THEN accuse those who pointed them out of trying to lie and deceive. If Biden hadn’t finally fallen apart in full view of the entire nation to the point where no farther denial was possible, these people would still be lying to us about Biden being sharp as a tack and having more energy than someone half his age.
Some even try to justify it as being no different than previous episodes of weakness in the White House: Cleveland’s cancer surgery, Wilson’s debilitating stroke, FDR running for a fourth term when he knew he would die soon, Kennedy’s precarious health, and so forth. Cleveland probably did the right thing, since the revelation of cancer would have sent an already precarious economy into a further bad place AND he had it treated promptly (a team of doctors cut out the tumor…and five teeth and most of his upper left jaw, forcing him to wear a rubber prosthetic that successfully concealed what had been done the rest of his life). The others were all dead wrong, but did not want to relinquish power.
Arguably this was worse than any of that, since the president did NOT seek treatment and might not even have been told that he had a major health issue. Possibly that information might even have been kept from him, which was much easier to do with him than with most people his age. The real issue with this is that it was probably done to keep him in place because he was the perfect puppet, and also the perfect path to getting Kamala Harris, arguably an even better puppet, into office without an election, if only Biden could hold on for two more years, then leave office in 2026, leaving Harris in place to possibly be president for 10 years, during which time the Democratic party would have free reign to turn this country into another socialist nanny state.
Whoever was behind all of this needs to be smoked out and held accountable, to the fullest extent possible. I think this could be a basis for treason charges.
Ethics Alarms 
“Some even try to justify it as being no different than previous episodes of weakness in the White House: Cleveland’s cancer surgery, Wilson’s debilitating stroke, FDR running for a fourth term when he knew he would die soon, Kennedy’s precarious health, and so forth….The others were all dead wrong, but did not want to relinquish power.”
Is a coincidence that they were all Democrats?
To be absolutely fair, Cleveland did hide his cancer surgery, but the bull barely missed any work, and went on with a half-rubber upper jaw with nobody noticing. He might as well have had a secret bad cold. Also several Republicans had health issues the pubic never learned about. Lincoln had cognitive issues stemming from getting kicked in the head by a horse as well a periodic deep depression: he might have been bi-polar or something similar. Teddy Roosevelt was also quite possibly bi-polar; he was definitely nuts. Ike’s heart issues were worse than he let on. LBJ’s health was also more precarious than the press revealed.
Going back a bit, Andrew Jackson might have been the sickest POTUS we ever had: Andy suffered had chronic infections and pain from old dueling wounds, migraines, dysentery, and tuberculosis, along with kidney failure and heart problems. He was just too mean to die.
Should we really go as far back as Jackson, though? Much of what we think of as a serious medical problem today really wasn’t considered so back then, particularly mental health issues. Lincoln’s “melancholies” may have been depression – and who can blame him? – but didn’t affect his ability to manage the war. Jackson’s “eccentricities” were pretty much well known and, like TR’s manic activity, tended to appeal to people rather than turn them off.
Now, I will agree that Ike’s heart problems were hidden unethically from the public. So that is a strike against modern Republicans. LBJ was, of course, also a Democrat.
Do we have reason to believe that Reagan’s Alzheimer’s was diagnosed during his Presidency and hidden? Otherwise, in my opinion, Democrats hold the prize for hiding medical problems.
No. Reagan had symptoms that retrospectively some have said were signs of the disease, but that’s hindsight.
Your point regarding Jackson is valid: everyone was sick back then. Abe’s depression and zone-outs were serious, though. He knew he had to keep busy and stimulated or he would veg out—it was more than depression, it was physiological.
President Reagan was able – despite his decline – to walk to the RNC stage in 1992 (four years after leaving office) and deliver a solid speech at that podium.
President Biden could barely give a speech of any kind – excepting maybe the demented Reichstag speech – during his time in office. Any bets on what he’ll be able to do in 2029?
I’d like to see the actual legal basis for treason charges. Otherwise it’s no different from Democrats saying everything Trump does is impeachment worthy.
The deteriorating Biden scandal was disgusting, ethically horrible, and even just plain stupid even if you remove ethics from the equation, but treasonous is another ballpark.
I’d say China Joe was adhering to the enemy, and a lot of the worthless impeachment activities were aiding the enemies of this country. It’s a reach, I know, but I think it has more value than the constant posts on Occupy Democrats and like sites calling Trump a traitor with no basis.
Another COTD congratulations to you, Steve-O. I can’t recall a time you failed to offer thoughts worth reading, and this was no exception. The treason idea at the end is probably a stretch, but given the obvious frustration, I understand the thought.