New Plan for Old Biden: Tennis Shoes and Baby Stairs on Air Force One

ANALYSIS – In case you missed it, Joe Biden tripped again recently going down the stairs of Air Force One. And these weren’t the normal tall stairs used by proud Commanders in Chief, that rise all the way to the top of the majestic presidential aircraft, but the very short baby stairs that are used by ‘the help’ that go into the lower bowels of the plane.

That is the new normal for our aging and decrepit occupant of the White House. That and tennis shoes worn with business suits and seeing a physical therapist. All to avoid tripping, slipping, or falling, and not being able to get back up.

This latest slip occurred just hours after Axios reported Biden’s campaign is “working on a critical project for his re-election bid: Make sure he doesn’t trip.”

‘Operation Don’t Let Biden Fall’ would be laughable if it weren’t so sad. But as Axios notes: “Biden’s team is betting that any mockery he receives over using the shorter Air Force One steps and wearing tennis shoes will be worth it to avoid another public stumble.”

Many Democrats worry about Biden having a bad fall like Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, 73 at the time, had in September 1996, when he fell off a stage at a rally weeks before the election.

Democrats already had been knocking Dole about his age compared to the 50-year-old Bill Clinton running for re-election.

Biden has repeatedly stumbled and tripped in public, including, most dramatically on stage at the Air Force’s graduation in June. 

Biden’s physician has diagnosed Biden’s stumbles as likely caused by “a combination of significant spinal arthritis” and “mild post-fracture foot arthritis.” 

Folksy old Biden might just say he is getting long in the tooth.

Biden, the oldest-ever serving U.S. president, turns 81 in less than two months. Three-fourths of Americans see Biden as too old for office, according to an AP-NORC poll last month.

Another poll from the Washington Post and ABC News in late September found that 3 out of 5 Democrats would prefer someone else be the party’s 2024 nominee.

The president’s doctor has recommended special exercises for balance, which he called “proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.”

Unfortunately, Axios noted, no one has ever heard of these “maneuvers.”

“I have never heard the term ‘proprioceptive maintenance maneuvers.’ It is not a clinical term in standard use,” said Professor James Gordon, associate dean and chair of the Division of Biokinesiology and Physical Therapy at the University of Southern California.

Biden’s doctor is just as good as Biden at using made up words or as good as the White House Press secretary is at blowing smoke.

As bad as his obvious physical frailty is, Americans should be just as concerned, or more so, about Biden’s severe mental decline. 

And it must be bad, when even the establishment media has noticed. NBC News reported in July:

Apparent to anyone paying attention is that the Biden they may remember from the Robert Bork Supreme Court confirmation hearings of 1987, or the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin in 2008, is a different man today. His gait is less steady, his speech not as fluid. He has confused Iraq with Ukraine and Rolling Fork, Mississippi, with “Rolling Stone.” At a conference last year, he looked out at the audience and called for a congresswoman who had recently died in a car crash.

The outlet added that Biden is “relying on “extra-large font on his teleprompter and note cards to remind him of the points he wants to make in meetings.”

I must note that I’ve seen the extra-large font on his teleprompter, and it is embarrassingly HUGE.

Meanwhile, the New York Times reported in June that Biden’s “staff schedules most of his public appearances between noon and 4 p.m. and leave him alone on weekends as much as possible.”

But there is only so much you can do to hide the fact that this man should be in a rocking chair with his grandkids, not leading the free world. 

It is doubtful that Team Biden can keep their man from falling during the camapign, it is even more doubtful that – barring keeping him isolated in a soundproof bubble – they can keep him from babbling incoherently.

Either way, we definitely don’t want Biden answering what Hillary Clinton in 2008 called “the 3am phone call” to the White House in a major crisis. And I can see a lot of those calls coming in over the next four years.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.