For many years, US President Joe Biden was portrayed as the “slightly rambling uncle” of national politics, a specialist in gaffes and convoluted phrases, but concerns about his age have changed that completely.
The tipping point: his disastrous performance in the debate against his Republican rival, Donald Trump, last month, where 50 million viewers watched him go from one moment to another without speaking, unable to finish his sentences and getting lost in his phrasing.
His communication difficulties are not new, however, and have their origins in the stuttering he has suffered from since childhood, which he has learned to control but which sometimes resurfaces.
His speech impediments earned him a reputation as a verbose and blundering politician throughout his half-century of political career, as a senator and then as Barack Obama’s vice president.
Over the decades, Joe Biden, now 81, has carved out an image for himself as a major figure in the Senate, where lawmakers can speak for hours, before a half-empty chamber and with no one to stop them, a practice of which he has become one of the faces.
“I want to point out that, perhaps for the first time in history, Joe Biden is 40 seconds under his speaking time,” the chairman of one of the Senate committees pointed out in 2006, after a 30-minute speech.
This tendency to speak out too much was one of the reasons for his defeat in the 1988 Democratic primaries, where he nevertheless gained notoriety for his life anecdotes, such as his train journeys or his childhood in Scranton, Pennsylvania (east), subjects that he still appreciates today.
His second attempt, in 2008, earned him the nickname “the slightly rambling uncle” from actor Robin Williams: “Joe is like your uncle who has just tried a new drug and doesn’t have the right dosage yet.”
“Merciless”
After becoming vice president in 2009, White House reports highlight regular mockery from President Obama’s advisers about Biden’s lack of rhetorical style and precision.
“I don’t remember exactly what Joe was referring to, not surprisingly,” Obama said at his first news conference as president.
But after eight years of vice presidency and then the tumultuous tenure of Republican Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s verbal approximations have been seen as a familiar and innocent facet of American political life.
“Rambling, stumbling, mumbling — that’s common to many political figures, even the most respected, and Joe Biden is one of them,” says Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture and media at Syracuse University.
“But that’s not what we saw, in a raw and unforgettable way, during the debate,” he said, interviewed by AFP.
On screen, the American president not only appeared vague or imprecise, he appeared out of breath, mumbling, and at times haggard.
Since then, Thompson said, his every move has been scrutinized, with political reporters in Washington doubly vigilant after facing a barrage of criticism over their failure to bring the president’s condition to the public’s attention before the debate.
“It’s just astounding to see the entire country, even the most informed journalists, shocked by the raw and painful reality of Mr. Biden’s performance in the debate,” wrote Jill Abramson, former editor-in-chief of the New York Times, on the Semafor website.
This forces Joe Biden to be irreproachable from now on, as was again underlined by the press conference given at the end of the NATO summit in Washington, during which his slightest blunders were broadcast on social networks.
“Presidents make gaffes all the time,” says Matt Dallek, a professor at George Washington University, “but because of his performance in the debate, the slightest blunder takes on enormous proportions.”
There was a time when referring to Mr. Trump as his “vice president” was quickly forgotten, but that is no longer the case.
“Donald Trump is using all this to mock your age and the state of your memory. How do you combat this type of criticism?” a journalist asked him after another gaffe.