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Original Content at https://www.opednews.com/articles/It-s-Not-Biden-s-Age-It-H-by-Rob-Kall-2020-Elections_Ageism_Competence_Gaffes-190914-533.html (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher). |
September 14, 2019
It's Not Biden's Age. It's His Cognitive Functioning
By Rob Kall
It's not about ageism. It's about Biden's mental competence and cognitive functioning.
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Julian Castro was massively lambasted for suggesting that Joe Biden didn't remember what he'd said two minutes earlier. The crowd booed, other candidates and pretty much all TV pundits criticized him for it.
Many pundits even said that Castro was wrong about what Biden said. I disagree. Biden clearly said that people could buy in. Listen below and comment on your take.
RT @nowthisnews: ‘Are you forgetting what you said two minutes ago?’ — Tensions flared between Joe Biden and Julián Castro over the legacy… at
— SuzyQ8 (@anonymiss8) September 14, 2019
When I heard Biden say that people could buy in if they lost their jobs, I wondered how, if they were out of work, they could afford to buy in. People who lose their job worry about paying their mortgage or rent, for food, electricity, credit cards, let alone big health insurance bills. Only medicare for all keeps the coverage going.
But this article is about Joe Biden's cognitive functioning. I think he has been getting a dangerous pass from his fellow primary candidates, the Democratic leadership and the press. A recent article in the NYTimes suggests Biden's only vulnerability is his age.
RT @nytopinion: Age will be the weapon that Joe Biden’s opponents will use, because it’s basically all they have, writes @nytegan https://t… at
— PurpleStateGal (@state_gal) September 14, 2019
But Michael Smerconish ran a poll on his Saturday morning CNN show. asking,
"Is Joe Biden's fitness for office fair game for Democrats?"
Smerconish was surprised that a strong majority supported questioning Biden's fitness, but held his position and suggested that Castro was "mean" to do it as he did.
I disagree, with the NYTimes Op-Ed, with Smerconish and with Amy Klobuchar, who also attacked Castro. I don't think it's a matter of ageism. It's a matter of calling out Biden for his cognitive functioning. Biden commits so many mental "blips" that people have good reason to be concerned about his cognitive functioning. And there is not doubt that if he becomes the Democratic candidate, he will be attacked every day for his faulty, failing, damaged, neurologically unsound mental functioning. Trump has already said "Biden is not playing with a full deck." It won't matter if it is true or not. Millions of memes will be sent out. Compilation videos will created. Actually, such videos already exist.
In the above video, Biden's cognitive slips are referred to as gaffes. And in the past, Biden did do "gaffes." But more recently, he has shifted from gaffes to blips. Blips are different than gaffes. Blips suggest problems with cognitive or neurological functioning. And Biden's mental competence and cognitive functioning are definitely fair game. In the interview below, with Stephen Colbert, Biden says that any criticism is fair game, but then goes on to say that his "gaffes" are about other people, not anything substantive. But in this last debate he made the racist suggestion that black parents need the help of social workers and in a previous debate he told people to go to a phone number, when obviously, he should have said his website address.
Below, you'll find a tweet linking to a right wing website Breitbart article that lists nine "bloopers." A blooper is also not a gaffe. Some of them are gaffes, but some are blips-- brain blips, like calling himself a congressman and calling Bernie Sanders president.
RT @Jayciejoy: What was this, a debate or a Bloopers & blunders show?! 🤔😳
Joe Biden Delivers 9 Gaffes, Lies, and Awkward Moments in 3rd De… at
— Barbara (@Barbara49962035) September 13, 2019
Nine "bloopers" in a three-hour stretch. It's getting worse and sites like Breitbart and Fox News are counting. They should be. We should be. Just as the Washington Post has counted Trump's thousands of lies, Joe's blips should be counted and categorized. Some of them are real causes for concern.
Imagine if people do as the pundits and other candidates, like Klobuchar say, and give Biden a pass. And then, after he wins the nomination, he gets worse. That can easily happen. It would give Trump a second term. Period. This is not something to be shy or polite about. Biden's competence must be challenged and questioned. Julian Castro did the right thing. The other candidates should be doing it too. Even debate moderators should be doing it, perhaps asking Biden to show that his memory works.
This criticism of Castro is all about political correctness. Biden's mental competence is too important, and too risky for political correctness. It is time for the media, other primary candidates and anyone who cares about getting rid of Trump to do their due diligence. And that means looking long and hard, really hard, at Joe Biden.
Rob Kall is an award winning journalist, inventor, software architect,
connector and visionary. His work and his writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, ABC, the HuffingtonPost, Success, Discover and other media.
Check out his platform at RobKall.com
He is the author of The Bottom-up Revolution; Mastering the Emerging World of Connectivity
He's given talks and workshops to Fortune
500 execs and national medical and psychological organizations, and pioneered
first-of-their-kind conferences in Positive Psychology, Brain Science and
Story. He hosts some of the world's smartest, most interesting and powerful
people on his Bottom Up Radio Show,
and founded and publishes one of the top Google- ranked progressive news and
opinion sites, OpEdNews.com
more detailed bio:
Rob Kall has spent his adult life as an awakener and empowerer-- first in the field of biofeedback, inventing products, developing software and a music recording label, MuPsych, within the company he founded in 1978-- Futurehealth, and founding, organizing and running 3 conferences: Winter Brain, on Neurofeedback and consciousness, Optimal Functioning and Positive Psychology (a pioneer in the field of Positive Psychology, first presenting workshops on it in 1985) and Storycon Summit Meeting on the Art Science and Application of Story-- each the first of their kind. Then, when he found the process of raising people's consciousness and empowering them to take more control of their lives one person at a time was too slow, he founded Opednews.com-- which has been the top search result on Google for the terms liberal news and progressive opinion for several years. Rob began his Bottom-up Radio show, broadcast on WNJC 1360 AM to Metro Philly, also available on iTunes, covering the transition of our culture, business and world from predominantly Top-down (hierarchical, centralized, authoritarian, patriarchal, big) to bottom-up (egalitarian, local, interdependent, grassroots, archetypal feminine and small.) Recent long-term projects include a book, Bottom-up-- The Connection Revolution, debillionairizing the planet and the Psychopathy Defense and Optimization Project.
Rob Kall's Bottom Up Radio Show: Over 400 podcasts are archived for downloading here, or can be accessed from iTunes. Or check out my Youtube Channel
Rob Kall/OpEdNews Bottom Up YouTube video channel
Rob was published regularly on the Huffingtonpost.com for several years.
Rob is, with Opednews.com the first media winner of the Pillar Award for supporting Whistleblowers and the first amendment.
To learn more about Rob and OpEdNews.com, check out A Voice For Truth - ROB KALL | OM Times Magazine and this article.
For Rob's work in non-political realms mostly before 2000, see his C.V.. and here's an article on the Storycon Summit Meeting he founded and organized for eight years.
Press coverage in the Wall Street Journal: Party's Left Pushes for a Seat at the Table
Talk Nation Radio interview by David Swanson: Rob Kall on Bottom-Up Governance June, 2017Here is a one hour radio interview where Rob was a guest- on Envision This, and here is the transcript..
To watch Rob having a lively conversation with John Conyers, then Chair of the House Judiciary committee, click here. Watch Rob speaking on Bottom up economics at the Occupy G8 Economic Summit, here.
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His quotes are here
Rob's articles express his personal opinion, not the opinion of this website.
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