Around this time eight years ago, I was fond of quipping about the then-upcoming election: “Ugh. What a choice: Evita, the Useful Idiot, the Con Man, or the Inquisitor.”
Of course, I did not think Hillary Clinton was an actual charming megalomaniac.
I did not think Bernie Sanders was an actual unwitting stooge for the Communist Party.
I did not think Donald Trump was an actual professional con man.
I did not think Ted Cruz was an actual church inquisitor.
Perhaps some of those nicknames are closer to the truth than others, but I was exaggerating all of them for laughs.
And it is for laughs that I’ve now changed former President Trump’s moniker from Con Man to Convict. Obviously, the former president is not and has never been a convict. But just as obviously, there are plenty of people doing their best to make him one. It’s a better joke.
Unfortunately, what may not be a joke is my go-to nickname for the current president: Dementia Patient. That is because the final decision of the Department of Justice (which just reported that President Joe Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials after his vice presidency when he was a private citizen”) indicates that the moniker may be true.
I cannot diagnose dementia. The DOJ cannot diagnose dementia. The current president has not been tested for dementia. For reasons beyond my comprehension, no one is insisting that the current president test for dementia.
But Special Counsel Robert Hur explained that the DOJ will not prosecute President Biden, despite evidence, because the president presents himself “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
In other words, the nice old guy running our country is too forgetful to prosecute.
Since the White House is not willing to provide an official diagnosis to settle the question, voters are left looking at the available evidence.
On one side of the issue, there is the evidence revealed in the DOJ report released on Feb. 8.
On the other side of the issue, there is the evidence revealed by President Biden, on the exact same day, when he held a rare-and-hurried press conference to refute the report.
Evidence from the report: President Biden could not remember when he was vice president, nor could he remember the year of his son’s untimely death. Not only could he not remember the year of his son’s death, he could not even place it within several years.
Evidence from President Biden: On live TV, the current president declared that the report exonerated him, ranted that the DOJ had some nerve asking about his son, yelled at two reporters, and got the name of the Mexican president wrong.
Unfortunately for everyone, both groups of evidence indicate dementia.
I’m 63, but I can remember the years of possibly every job I’ve held since I was 15 — even the ones that weren’t VP of the USA. I don’t scream at people during public events. I know the name of the Mexican president. I know when I’ve been given a get-out-of-jail-free card. But most of all, although my first husband died 23 years before Beau Biden did, I can remember the exact date. I will never forget that date as long as I have my mental faculties.
No one knows what will happen between now and November, but it currently appears that we will be stuck deciding between the Convict and the Dementia Patient. It’s not a pretty choice. But we do have something highly unusual: two presidential track records to compare.
Four years ago, in the Trump era, we had reasonable living expenses, no foreign entanglements, and the lowest Black unemployment in recorded history.
Now, in the Biden era, we are sending billions to finance foreign wars while, at home, we have rising homelessness and crime. In addition, poor Black communities are now having services taken away in order to house all the people coming over the border.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good idea to have either a Convict or a Dementia Patient leading our nation. But if it’s a binary choice (which it always is), I’ll pick the Convict – especially since convicts usually have their wits about them. Especially when that candidate isn’t actually a convict. Especially when the DOJ just declared that the other candidate isn’t fit to stand trial.
And most especially, when the Dementia Patient took tons of our money and gave it to everybody else.
Lisa Lavadores is a Santa Clarita Valley resident.
The post Lisa Lavadores | A Convict & a Dementia Patient appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
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