Just a few headlines that ran during Donald Trump’s tenure in the White House not that long ago:
New York Times, February 2017: “Is It Time to Call Trump Mentally Ill?”
Vanity Fair, January 2018: “Has the Trump Dementia Coup Already Happened?”
Newsweek, January 2019: “Joe Scarborough Calls for 25th Amendment After Trump Cabinet Meeting, Says President Is ‘Not Fit to Hold the Office’”
Media talk about Trump’s mental fitness for office was routine during his presidency, just one ingredient in the hysteria crockpot that journalists and TV people in Washington and New York heated up for the purpose of kneecapping his agenda. It went into hyperdrive after the 2018 publication of Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, a fantastical book about the Trump White House that the author admitted was in no small part fictionalized. Even so, the refrain by people like Joe Scarborough on MSNBC was that its content “rings true,” thereby permitting them all to assert endless wild claims about the president operating with a junk brain.
In light of last week’s astonishing debate performance by the current president, let’s just talk about the dishonesty and disrepute of Scarborough.
Just three months ago, Scarborough was heralding Biden’s unparalleled genius and mental aptitude. “I’ve said it for years now, he’s cogent,” he said on his MSNBC show. “But I undersold it when I said he was cogent. He’s far beyond cogent. In fact I think he’s better than he’s ever been, intellectually, analytically.” He added, “This version of Biden,
