Vantage | Is Joe Biden 'unfit' to be US President?

Is Joe Biden unfit to be president? It’s a question we don’t like asking. After all, age is just a number. We would much rather judge Biden on his policies, but the president isn’t helping his case. Recently, Biden was investigated by a special counsel. The case dates back to the last decade. Biden was suspected of mishandling secret documents. The probe found that Biden was guilty. But that’s not the biggest headline from this probe report. Biden’s memory has significant limitations. It is apparently hazy, poor, and painfully slow. That’s what the special counsel said. Now coming to full disclosure, the counsel is a Republican. So he had reasons to trash Biden’s memory. Yet his findings are still concerning. Apparently, Biden did not remember when he was vice president. He also couldn’t remember when his son died.

Now, that last claim really riled up Biden. The president was visibly agitated by it. “There’s even a reference that I don’t remember when my son died. How in the hell dare he raise that? Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself that it wasn’t any of their damn business,” said Biden. “My memory is not fine; my memory is fine. My memory—take a look at what I’ve done since I became president,” said the US president. So Biden says his memory is fine, but moments later he messed up. He was talking about aid passing from Egypt to Gaza, but he got confused between the presidents of Mexico and Egypt. “As you know, initially the President of Mexico, Sisi (Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi), did not want to open up the gate (into Gaza) to allow humanitarian material to get in. I talked to him; I convinced him to open the gate,” said Biden. Just to clarify, El-Sisi is the president of Egypt. Andrés Manuel Obrador is the president of Mexico. It’s not the first time Biden has gotten confused. He’s making a habit of it. On Sunday, Biden got the French president’s name wrong. He called him Mitterrand instead of Macron, and then on Wednesday, he made another gaffe. He confused Angela Merkel with Helmut Kohl. Both were German chancellors, but Biden only dealt with one of them: Merkel. These mix-ups have raised questions about Biden’s abilities. Is he fit to be in office, let alone run again? Republicans don’t think so. Chances are, they will weaponize this report. It confirms what they have been saying for a while. But is Donald Trump any better? He too has confused names recently; Trump was talking about his response to the Capitol riots. He confused Nancy Pelosi for Nikki Haley. “Nikki Haley, you know they destroyed all of the information, all of the evidence, everything. They deleted and destroyed all of it. All of it is because of lots of things, like Nikki Haley being in charge of security. We offered her 10,000 people—soldiers, national guard, whatever they wanted. They turned it down,” said the former US president. Nikki Haley is capitalising on this. She has released a new campaign advertisement. It brands Trump and Biden as grumpy old men. Some may call it a cheap shot. But age has become a key issue in this election. Joe Biden is 81 years old, and Donald Trump is 77 years old. Compare that to the average age of US presidents, which is just 55 years. So the concerns are real. Around 76 percent of voters are concerned about Biden’s age. As much as 48 percent think Trump is too old to be president. So both men face the same criticism. But is it a fair criticism? That’s where the debate gets fuzzy. Presidents are public servants at the end of the day. So technically, they are hired by the people. So why can’t people demand younger presidents? Employers do it all the time. In the current atmosphere, it makes a lot of sense. The US is involved in two wars and is also facing challenges from China, so now is the time for young, charismatic leadership. But who do they get? Two old white men, and it’s not just about their age but about their mental capacity. Mixing up the names of your counterparts is funny the first time, but by the third time, eyebrows are raised. That is what is happening now. Having said that, there is a silver lining for both men. In the final race, they can debate each other instead of a younger, more energetic candidate, which would have made the difference more stark. Lucky for them, it is old versus old. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the  Latest News,  Trending News,  Cricket News,  Bollywood News, India News and  Entertainment News here. Follow us on  Facebook,  Twitter and  Instagram.