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Even WaPo understands - must investigate Biden's competence!
How can everyone tolerate our POTUS belonging in a memory care unit!
from
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/07/10/biden-physician-oconnor-plead-the-fifth/
Opinion
Editorial Board
Americans deserve an unflinching investigation into Biden’s health
Why it’s so disappointing that former White House physician Kevin
O’Connor refuses to testify before Congress.
July 10, 2025 at 4:10 p.m. EDTJuly 10, 2025
3 min
2661
Former White House physician Kevin O'Connor leaves the Rayburn House
Office Building after a hearing with the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday. (Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters)
Former president Joe Biden’s onetime personal physician, Kevin O’Connor, announced on Wednesday that he would plead the Fifth before the House
Oversight Committee rather than discuss Biden’s fitness while in office. Republicans claimed this was evidence of a “cover-up.” Democrats
dismissed the House probe entirely, insisting that Biden’s health issues
were overblown.
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Both are getting this wrong. Congress should thoroughly investigate
whether Biden was physically and mentally capable of carrying out his
duties — and not just to sate understandable public curiosity about the previous administration.
Biden’s case is only the latest evidence that lawmakers should take on
the difficult but unavoidable topic of whether to set transparency rules
on presidential health. This means Democrats cannot deny that the Biden
health story is important. It also means the Republicans running the
probe should be more interested in getting relevant information than in embarrassing Democrats. So far, neither side is looking great.
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Reporting since Biden left office suggests he frequently forgot top
aides’ names and needed to use a teleprompter even for minor events. His Cabinet meetings were scripted. He often struggled to keep up with the
long hours the job requires, with O’Connor frequently recommending more
rest. His aides also reportedly tried to hide his frailty from the public.
These reports raise legitimate concerns that Biden’s health threatened national security and continuity of government. Lawmakers have a
responsibility to carefully examine the matter and use their findings to consider reforms that would preserve Americans’ confidence in their leaders.
Granted, O’Connor’s position is tricky. He has ethical and legal obligations to protect private patient information. He also fears that
the Justice Department could use his testimony against him, after
President Donald Trump directed it to investigate whether Biden aides “conspired to deceive the public” by hiding the former president’s
health issues.
But O’Connor could probably reveal more than anyone else about how White House officials seek to control the public’s perception of a president’s fitness. He could speak to whether he ever felt pressure to sanitize his
annual public reports on Biden’s health. He could discuss the process of writing those reports accurately while keeping the president’s trust. He might also offer insight on whether presidents should be subjected to
more frequent or more extensive testing, given that Biden claims his
late-stage prostate cancer was only detected after the 2024 election.
All of this would be useful information if Congress were to consider
requiring presidents to reveal more about their health, such as by
mandating that they undergo regular physical exams and cognitive testing
by independent professionals.
In an ideal world, Republicans and Democrats would see this
congressional inquiry as an opportunity to improve American governance
rather than as an opportunity to score political points. They might form
a bipartisan commission, staffed by serious thinkers in each party, to
study the issue and craft recommendations to improve transparency about
the president’s fitness.
But Democrats’ broad resistance to confronting Biden’s decline, and Republicans’ eagerness to use the issue against them, make it unlikely
that Congress will perform such a useful service. Rep. James Comer (R-Kentucky), chairman of the Oversight Committee, refused O’Connor’s request to delay the hearing so terms could be negotiated that would
allow him to answer questions without violating doctor-patient
privilege. Comer should reconsider.
Writing bright-line rules on presidential health is hard, as is
contemplating the related issue of whether some people are simply too
old to serve. Leaders such as Winston Churchill ran their countries ably
into their 80s. Yet health risks typically multiply in people’s later
years. All the more reason to conduct a sober and unflinching
investigation into Biden’s fitness — as the starting point for a larger reconsideration of what Americans should expect to know about their
presidents.
The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board
Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as
determined through discussion among members of the Editorial Board,
based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.
Members of the Editorial Board: Deputy Opinion Editors Mary Duenwald and Stephen Stromberg, as well as writers Robert Gebelhoff, James Hohmann,
Megan McArdle, Eduardo Porter and Keith B. Richburg.
What readers are saying
The comments overwhelmingly criticize the focus on investigating former President Joe Biden's health, arguing that the current President Donald
Trump's mental and physical health should be the priority. Many
commenters express concern over Trump's perceived cognitive decline
and... Show more
This summary is AI-generated. AI can make mistakes and this summary is
not a replacement for reading the comments.
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