Ted Rall’s cartoon digs into how Democrats and media desperately worked to hide the obvious mental decline of former President Joe Biden during his four years in office. People around him said Biden had speech trouble, with no real proof. while keeping quiet about his dementia. Now recent news about Biden’s cancer, described as aggressive prostate cancer spreading to his bones, seems intended to make us feel sorry for him instead of angry.
Remember When It Was Just a Stutter?
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The TMI Show" talk show. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Although I loathe conspiracy theories, why should I believe that Joe Biden has cancer? He’s old, he’s out of power, his legacy is destroyed. (But wait … There’s more!)
He has, single-handedly, ended any (shaky or otherwise) claim the democratic party had on being the law-and-order people, and the Republicans are going to use that come 2026. No matter how bad Trump is, there’s too much mud on the democrat brand now. And in so many varieties. And it covers so many people. Watch for the Republicans to start downshifting on Trump as he reaches the midterms. They’ll wheel him out for the July 4 celebrations because Trump loves gaudy, and he loves using patriotism as a rallying cry for his base, but we’re going to be entering post-Trump Trumpism after the rockets’ red glare fades. And that will basically consist of: “Everyone the democrats are running was in on all of Biden’s deceptions.”
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Trump started show trials just in time to torpedo a lot of primary candidates (both midterm and presidential). Drag Karine Jean-Pierre up to the witness stand and watch her try to fumble without her giant binder to help her really achieve fumbleness. Put a few media darlings up there. Can you imagine David Muir trying not to flex his manly biceps while being asked how all the networks failed to pick up on Biden’s mental state? It’ll control the entire election cycle.
Prostate cancer is strange. A French president died of prostate cancer that they didn’t detect.
For myself, I’m old enough I’ve been seeing a lot of doctors for the last 15 years and it was only 5 years ago that I had knee problems and the doctor said, ‘At your age, you must have a PSA test,’ and my PSA was sky high.
My first urologist gave me a bunch of medicines and said I should have surgery immediately, so I got a second opinion, and the second urologist said there was no malignancy and I could try the medicines and see if they worked (my father died from an enlarged prostate that was not malignant, just large enough to kill his kidneys so he died of kidney failure).
So it seems a lot of men with prostate problems have them undiagnosed and die from prostate problems without knowing what killed them.
Moral: if you are of the male persuasion and over 50, get a PSA test.
@michaelwme: Your post is certainly interesting, but it doesn’t establish a connection between prostate cancer and dementia, as there is no known relationship.
Even Rall’s AI didn’t pretend there was any: Just read the last sentence.
Surely there is some source who is willing to be named. I didn’t read “Original Sin” but in none of the coverage, including Ted’s recent column, has a name been given for any primary source who has said that Biden wasn’t making decisions. The column says “By all accounts …” and “… pulls from 200 interviews …” but never says who. (Robert Hur is a possible exception, though his “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” could easily be indicating that Biden is crafty enough (!) to convince a jury, which of course is competence not incompetence.)
Yes, I voted for someone other than Biden in the 2020 primaries. Yes, I was a Dean Philips supporter when he entered the 2024 race because I did not think Biden could win a second term nor that he had another four good years in him. That’s not at all the same as saying that Biden could not or was not making decisions during his first term. Where’s a named source who can corroborate that level of incompetence? Please, if you have them, give me some names!