Notes

Narrative twist. On Tuesday, Jake Tapper, an anchor for the U.S. news network CNN, and Alex Thompson, a correspondent for the news site Axios, published their book Original Sin. It tells the story of former U.S. President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline during his last years in office and the intrigues of his staff to hide it—and keep him as the Democratic Party’s candidate in the 2024 presidential election.

In the week leading up to publication, one American news organization after the other released dramatic excerpts or ran articles reacting to the book’s claims. But evidence of Biden’s aging—his slowing gait and speech, and his verbal slip-ups—was visible to the world throughout the latter part of his term, well before his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate last June. The theme of Biden’s cognitive decline was a constant on Fox News and in other right-leaning news media.

So why all the attention now?

—Michael Bluhm