Requiem for a President

We've seen this movie before.

Joe Biden may no longer be running for president by the time you read these words. Or, he may be clinging to his diminishing hopes of victory. Either way, we’ve seen this movie before. It’s the one where an aging, punch-drunk fighter stays in the ring for too long, suffering humiliation after humiliation on his journey from the top to the bottom. Rod Serling’s teleplay Requiem for a Heavyweight is a classic example of this vintage storyline of battered boxers and their cynical managers.

(UPDATE: President Biden withdrew from the race shortly after this piece was published.)

I’ve always had a soft spot for old-school Irish politicos, having covered a couple in my day (see here). I was always somewhat fond of Joe, despite our ideological differences—at least until the genocide in Gaza. But today I feel something politicians should fear even more than hostility: I feel sorry for him.

I do dislike being gaslit. Most people do. Biden’s allies have been gaslighting voters for too long, creating distrust that could doom Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.  And they’re not the only ones being gaslit. So is Biden himself. Like an aging pugilist in an old movie, he’s being manipulated by people who have put their own interests above his. They’ve let Biden think he can still win. That’s cruel. It’s even crueler to keep pushing him into appearances where he says things like, “By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman, to serve with a black president.” 

Listen, I don’t care if he says he was the star of Medea’s Family Reunion—if he does it in private. Sentences like that are common for people with neurological problems, as anyone who’s cared for a declining loved one knows. They should be met with compassion and patience. But it’s heartless to let them be said on a global stage. 

Biden’s supporters are starting to embarrass themselves, too. Operatives who promoted Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama in 2008 by summoning the specter of a “3 am phone call” now back a president who reportedly told a group of governors that, as the New York Times puts it, “he needs to get more sleep and work fewer hours, including curtailing events after 8 pm.” (The White House did not directly deny these second-hand reports but said that such limits are typical of recent presidents.)

MSNBC’s assertions have further degraded its credibility with all but the most avowedly partisan Democrats, as when Rachel Maddow praised Biden’s NATO press conference. The president demonstrated “a startlingly impressive command of the issues” and was “a master of the field of foreign policy,” Maddow said, despite Biden’s lack of coherent plans for Ukraine, Gaza, or the accelerating Cold War with China.

What about the press conference’s syntax, you ask? The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner writes, “I encourage you to read the White House’s transcript of the event and try to follow the train of thought in almost any of Biden’s answers.”

Lawrence O’Donnell blended his trademark pomposity and condescension with a profound—and profoundly partisan—misreading of history. “Pundits suggest replacing President Biden as the Democratic nominee,” said O’Donnell, “because they don’t understand the job of the presidency or how conventions work.”

That’s flim-flam. Party rules allow Biden to step aside. And while O’Donnell gamely attempted to equate Biden’s condition with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s physical impairment, FDR’s health did not affect his cognition or his ability to communicate with the public—both of which are presidential job requirements. 

“It's not the time for someone to decide that the pilot who has flown this plane before successfully should be pulled out of the cockpit because he's too old,” says O’Donnell. But what if the pilot becomes ill and can’t do his job? We’ve seen that movie, too.

I have now heard confidential comments from multiple doctors—including a neurologist, neuropsychiatrist, and geriatrician—who say they believe the president has a progressive brain disease. Each said that his outward appearance suggested Parkinsonism, which is described in the National Library of Medicine as “a broad term referring to various neurodegenerative diseases that manifest with motor symptoms such as rigidity, tremors, and bradykinesia” (a movement disorder).

There are several diseases associated with Parkinsonism, of which Parkinson’s Disease is the most common. I am told that signs of these diseases can be seen in a person’s gait, facial expressions, speech, and other outward indicators.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre has been vague, evasive, and self-contradictory about Biden’s health. (Read this briefing transcript and see for yourself.) Then there are those eight visits from a Parkinson’s specialist, followed by a doctor’s letter with an oddly worded sentence that, upon careful reading, excluded several conditions but not Parkinsonism.

Jean-Pierre made another heavily parsed statement: “Has the president been treated for Parkinson’s?  No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s?  No, he’s not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson’s?  No.”  “Parkinson’s” refers to Parkinson’s disease. It does not exclude other forms of Parkinsonism or other neurological disorders.

The doctors could be wrong, of course. We can’t be certain because Biden won’t undergo an independent medical examination. Maybe the White House’s word pretzels created a false impression of secrecy. But the fact remains that Biden could allay these fears overnight with a medical exam and refuses.

Still, it doesn’t take an MD to know that Biden is unfit to run for president for one simple reason: he can’t convince voters he’s healthy enough to be president. Ergo, he probably can’t win. (And, no, voters don’t doubt Biden’s health because of biased media coverage. Polls show that they’ve been concerned for years.)

To be clear, the president doesn’t suffer from the syndrome that afflicts boxers. The phrase “punch-drunk” describes a condition now called Dementia pugilistica, caused by repeated blows to the head. It’s another form of Parkinsonism, with symptoms that include slowed movement, speech and memory problems, unsteady gait, and paranoia. 

Which brings us back to Requiem for a Heavyweight, a drama with two different endings. In the 1956 TV play, the boxer quits fighting. He’s last seen coaching a child, hinting at a kinder future for the battered veteran. But in the 1962 movie his self-serving manager frustrates his attempt to leave the ring. This description of the film’s final scene says it all: “As his saddened [trainer] watches, [the boxer] dons his humiliating outfit, then faces the crude, bloodthirsty crowd.”

The public has waited long enough. It’s time for someone to write the final scene and tell us how this story ends.