Letter: Joe Biden has a stutter, not cognitive issues
To the editor:
I saw an article featuring a statement from Lara Trump, daughter-in-law of the president, in which she said it is time to question Joe Biden’s cognitive ability and then she stated her fear that whenever Biden speaks, she fears he will not be able to string together a sentence coherently.
This is a statement by a severely uninformed person and it is furthermore a very cruel thing to say. What she is referring to is actually Joe Biden’s handicap and I feel it is time he was defended.
Joe Biden had a very serious stuttering problem as a child. In his time (the 1940’s and 1950’s) and in his family……a working-class family…..there generally was not speech therapy available. To Joe’s credit he was largely able to cure himself of this stuttering handicap by his own grit. His sensitive and wise mother was also a help is his improvement. Read his autobiography. It is very moving when it discusses his stuttering.
Yet to this day he still has some elements of his former serious handicap. When he speaks he often has to stop mid-sentence. He often does a prolonged eye blink in which his eyes are closed and his speech ceases briefly. These patterns reflect his conscious effort to contain his residual stuttering. And of course, even with his best efforts, he still stammers from time to time.
And so when people say he must be senile, or he is incoherent, or has faulty thought process, it is high time people recognize that he is, in fact, doing a remarkable job of communicating given the affliction that he had as a youngster.
Sure, he is not an eloquent orator like Barack Obama or Pete Buttigieg or even Ronald Reagan. But he is a good and decent and smart man who is fully capable to be our president. And everyone who knows me knows that Joe Biden was not my first choice. I feel, however, compelled to defend him and hope that people will stop cruel and unfounded attacks on him.
If people have a disagreement with his policies, ok. But stop the cruel personal attacks, Mrs. Trump.
Michael Merchant
Paso Robles
