March 9, 2024

OLD AND BUSTED: Trump’s White House Was ‘Awash in Speed’ — and Xanax.

—Rolling Stone (which morphed into those squares at the Moral Majority so slowly, I hardly even noticed).

The New Hotness? Need More Proof Biden Was Drugged for the State of the Union? Here It Is.

A great deal hinged on Joe Biden’s performance during Thursday evening’s State of the Union address. The White House knew more than anything that Biden had to dispel concerns regarding his age and cognitive decline. Naturally, the mainstream media did its part to help in shore up this narrative affirming Biden’s presidential competence, and wound up choosing the same entry from the thesaurus to characterize his delivery: “fiery.”

I’m sure it was just a coincidence.

But, it didn’t work for those of us who saw and heard Biden’s loud and angry delivery, which was punctuated by constant slurring and slip ups. One expert says that Biden’s performance featured the telltale signs of being medicated.

Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist specializing in elderly dementia patients, pointed out that Biden’s increased speed and volume during the address, contrary to his usual slow and stumbling demeanor, could be indicative of stimulant usage, potentially Adderall or another amphetamine.

“[Adderall]’s given to focus someone’s attention so if you give it to someone who is not focused and give it to them ahead of a big event like the State of the Union, it will improve their focus,” Lieberman told the Washington Times. “But it’s treating the symptoms rather than boosting the brain and it’s addictive so it’s dangerous.”

As compelling and convincing as Lieberman’s theory is, there’s actually more evidence Biden was not his usual self during the State of the Union.

I previously pointed to Biden brief encounter with reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews, where Biden had curiously become his trademark low-energy, glitchy self. His explanation for his use of the word “illegals” to describe an illegal immigrant—which irked many in his party—was, to say the least, unimpressive.

But, even more indicative that something had changed in Biden was during his campaign speech in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Friday, which was virtually a carbon copy of his State of the Union speech, and yet it was a disaster.

At one point in the speech, he declared, “Pennsylvania, I have a message for you: send me to Congress!”

I’d take this as another cry for help from Joe — if he’s feeling overwhelmed by the duties of the White House and wants return to the Senate in November, I’m sure that can be arranged. As P.J. O’Rourke once wrote,“The founding fathers, in their wisdom, devised a method by which our republic can take one hundred of its most prominent numbskulls and keep them out of the private sector where they might do actual harm.”

But I don’t think we can blame alleged drug usage on Kamala’s gaffes:

Related: Byron York: Biden ‘yelled’ through State of the Union to ‘seem younger.’

“Democrats were extremely happy. They were relieved. He stood up there and talked for 68 minutes. And he seemed to yell a lot. Personally, I thought he was yelling a lot. He thought, ‘Well, maybe if I really yell, it’ll make me seem younger,’” York said. “I don’t think it convinced anybody who’s concerned about his capacity to serve till age 86.”

As Jim Geraghty wrote yesterday: President Steroids Shouts His Way through the State of the Union. “Taken as a whole, Biden’s speech started to sound like Howard Beale’s monologue from Network. But keep in mind, the number of Americans who watched the whole speech, beginning to end, is considerably smaller than the number who will see brief excerpts on the television news, or YouTube, or other social media. By shouting through almost the entire speech, Biden maximized the odds that any clip or segment that went viral would have him looking fired up and impassioned rather than like the sleepy, whispery, mumbling octogenarian that Americans have soured on so thoroughly.”

Posted at 1:14 pm by Ed Driscoll