For those of us who were awake to the reality of former President Joe Biden’s infirmities, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s new book Original Sin is more an affirmation than a revelation.

Efforts to cover up a president’s physical and mental decline have a long and ignominious tradition. Woodrow Wilson famously had a stroke and was largely incapacitated for his last year in office. The reality of Franklin Roosevelt’s health was kept secret during World War II, and there have long been questions about whether Ronald Reagan was afflicted by Alzheimer’s during his second term in office.