Dem
47
GOP
53
There was very unfortunate news out of Delaware yesterday, as a spokesperson for Joe Biden announced that the former president has been diagnosed with an "aggressive" form of prostate cancer that has metastasized to his bones.
Team Biden is saying all the things that are usually said in these cases: The cancer was caught fairly early, doctors are optimistic it will respond to treatment, the patient is ready to put up a fight, etc. Such assertions often presage a successful battle against the disease. However, they also often presage a person succumbing to cancer. We hardly have neither the general expertise nor the specific information, to know which is closer to the truth here. We do know that "aggressive" and "metastasis to the bone" are particularly worrying in the context of a cancer diagnosis.
This, of course, is release week for the volume on Biden's mental state, from the pens of Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson. It's too late for the publisher to change course now; indeed, copies ordered though Amazon and other online booksellers are undoubtedly already in the mail. One almost cannot imagine worse timing, short of Biden actually dying this week. It's the kind of thing that makes us think that karma might be real. Certainly, it would be very poor form for the authors to go on The View or The Tonight Show to flog the volume.
More broadly, this might just take Biden's mental health off the table as a subject of political discourse. Since he is not president, and since he will not run for office ever again, and since the people who theoretically protected him are no longer working in the White House, the whole thing is just a distraction. Republican politicians, and right-wing media, have ridden it for all it's worth, while some Democratic politicians, and a lot of non-right-wing media, have taken the bait, hook, line, and sinker. It's not especially plausible to make a political football out of Biden's health this week, or next, or next, and at a certain point it's old news.
Needless to say, we wish Biden good luck in his fight against this evil disease. It is also worth noting that his odds of survival are improved dramatically by having access to good-quality healthcare and reasonably early detection. The American Cancer Society has a page with lots of good information about cancer screening, including a checklist for who should get which tests, and at which age. We hope many readers will take a look at it. (Z)