Brit Hume is a political analyst, not a physician, but he had no qualms about playing a doctor on Fox News TV this week as he “diagnosed” Joe Biden as senile then speculated he might be able to keep the senility at bay during the debate.
Although it’s not in the video below, host Tucker Carlson set the stage for Hume in the opening before Hume came on, in a discussion preceding Tuesday night's presidential debate:
CARLSON: Joe Biden will soon be 78 years old. He is the oldest man to ever run for president on a major ticket.
It shows. Biden is fading. No honest person denies that.
…
It's a risk to run a candidate who may be senile, but as far as Wall Street was concerned, it was not a tough call. They found Bernie Sanders's economic populism terrifying.
Of course, Carlson is not a physician either. Spewing medical disinformation while smearing actual medical expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is one of Carlson's real specialties.
When Hume came on, he picked up the cue and ran with it:
HUME: Well, I suspect that the president will do his best to try to get Biden off his game and rattle him and hope that the confusion that senile people often experience will come into play.
CARLSON: Yes.
HUME: But I don't think that can be counted on and I'm not sure it was at all wise for the president to talk as he did for weeks on end about how out of it Joe Biden is, because remember in the last debate, it was just the two of them, Biden and Bernie, a televised debate very much like what we're going to have tonight and Biden did just fine.
Elderly people experiencing memory loss and the other problems associated with age can have -- you know, go for periods of hours at a time and be just fine. I don't think there's any doubt Biden is senile, but it doesn't mean he is going to show up tonight and I suspect he will be well prepped, I think he will be well-briefed and anything can happen. But I don't think anybody ought to count on him having a bad night.
And now that the expectations for him have been set so low, if he comes out and doesn't drool and gets through everything pretty well, it could end up being quite a boost for him.
CARLSON: That's a very smart point, I think. So all of the conversation, and most of it anyway, at least on the right, has been around Biden's capability. Can he do this? Will he show? We've spent a lot of time talking about that, it looks like we were wrong.
[…]
CARLSON: We have a live shot up on the screen, Joe Biden has just arrived by limo at the Debate Hall in Cleveland.
Many people predicted that he would not show. This show was among them. I actually made a bet with Dana Perino. It looks like we just lost it. Are you surprised?
HUME: I was surprised he agreed to three. I thought he probably felt he had to agree to at least one or maybe two. Look, I think, you know, as I have said, there's a distinct possibility he could have a good night tonight and be sharp and clear the way he was in that last debate with Bernie Sanders.
CARLSON: Right.
HUME: Whether -- I think the odds are a little more against him if he does this three times as he has committed to do, so it remains to be seen.
Sadly for this lot, it was Trump who looked deranged, drugged, and demented during the debate.
(H/T Media Matters)
