What Biden’s Biography and His Debate Can Tell Us About His Exceptional Referencing in Washington, D.C.

Reporters and Mr. Biden’s biographers are wondering if they missed signs of his condition and whether they were deceived. Americans are suddenly engaged in a speculative conversation about whether the President is physically and mentally fit to lead the country and whether they can trust his self-assessment. What would it mean for a person to “get back up” who also can’t walk, speak or debate with the ease he once did? And how to make sense of his appearance at the debate and the stories that have emerged since about lapses of memory, naps during the day and occasional bouts of confusion?

He was asking Americans to see themselves in him and to recognize his debate performance as both an aberration from and a continuation of who he has always been: a person who may suffer and stumble but whose ambition, commitment and confidence in himself have provided a backstop of resilience against insult and injury.

I’m a geriatrician, a physician whose specialty is the care of older adults. I watched the debate and saw what other viewers saw: a president valiantly trying to stand up for his record and for his nation but who seemed to have declined precipitously since the State of the Union address he gave only a few months earlier.