Who needs Republicans to question the competence of Democratic candidates to serve as president when the Donks are rising to that task all by themselves?
In an interview last week with New Yorker Radio, freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez “went there,” wondering aloud whether former Vice President Joe Biden’s recent debate performance was an indication that he is mentally unfit to function as commander in chief. Here’s an audio of the segment:
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
Ocasio-Cortez did her best to pretend she wasn’t referring to Biden’s age, but that was definitely where she was going with her remarks. Rather than chalking up his weak showing on the debate stage as merely an “off” night for the frontrunner among Democrats in national polls, Ocasio-Cortez questioned his “capacity.” “I don’t want to say just because someone is 79, they can’t or shouldn’t run for president,” she told her interviewer, adding, “I don’t want to use those proxies, a number as a proxy for capacity. I think you have to assess a person’s capacity kind of on a case-by-case basis.”
Putting aside the irony of this assessment being tendered by someone whose own mental limitations have been well documented, there is an element of upstartism in the comments. Ocasio-Cortez has been a member of Congress a little more than six months. Whatever happened to respect for senior statesmen, not to mention party loyalty? Is Ocasio-Cortez so taken with her own instant celebrity that she is unaware of the potential harm she is doing the Democratic brand?
Funny that she has no reservations about the mental capacity of another senior member of Congress, Sen. Bernie Sanders, even though at 77 he’s a year older than Biden.
Cross posted at the Mental Recession
