The spectacle of Joe Biden’s psychological and cognitive decline is both sad and deeply alarming. At a press conference in Hanoi on Sunday, the 80-year-old US president was cut off mid-flow by his aides after yet another rambling and often incomprehensible performance in which he described climate change deniers, bafflingly, as “lying, dog-faced pony soldiers” and appeared to confuse the movie Good Morning, Vietnam with a song.
Since 1973, American psychiatrists have observed the so-called “Goldwater Rule” that clinicians do not offer public opinions on, or diagnose those whom they have not personally evaluated; this followed an ugly controversy in the 1964 presidential election in which more than 1,000 of them had declared Barry Goldwater, the Republican nominee, unfit for office. And — more generally — this has discouraged journalists and other observers from commenting recklessly upon the psychological state of politicians.
