My footfalls sound different from one another when I walk these days. They’ve been that way for a couple of months, ever since I swung a seven iron awkwardly and felt something go “zing” in my back. One spinal operation and six weeks of mending later, my right sole still flaps down as soon as my heel hits the ground, whereas my left does what it’s supposed to do, easing down as my weight transfers toward my toes.
I don’t have anything else in common with Joe Biden, but we do both walk funny. I disagree with him on just about every policy choice available, whether it be his retro-Keynesian economics, his sucking up to China, his appeasement of Iran and frostiness toward Israel, his gender tokenism and racial pandering, or his liking for make-it-up judges. But however that may be, both of us now have a gimpy right foot.
The president-elect is wearing a supportive boot because he fractured his foot when playing with one of his dogs over the weekend. This news was noted in media reports and used, as one would expect from the usual suspects, to say something oleaginously complimentary about the incoming Democrat. CNN, which will be Biden’s poodle from now on, decided that the briefing about his injury portends new wonders of transparency from the next administration. But that was about all there was. To the extent that anyone made anything of Biden’s injury, they did so to convey that it was no big deal or else a tangential positive sign.
Presidential health is important and, more to the point, interesting. And that’s not simply because the guy has his finger on the nuclear trigger. No, it’s interesting because our health is who we are, and it’s who presidents are, too. Injuries and ailments say something about the people who have them.
Back in 1997, when I covered Washington politics for a British newspaper, I failed to file a story when President Bill Clinton had cochlear implants fitted into his ears. He’d lost hearing partly because he listened to too much loud music in his youth. It seems astonishing, looking back, that it didn’t click with me that it was worth reporting that the first rock ‘n’ roll president was now old enough to need hearing aids, and he needed them because he was from the generation that cranked up the volume. My boss in London was not pleased.
Which brings me back to Biden’s fractured foot. Let’s stipulate that it’s no big deal in itself, but limping through transition toward inauguration is not a good look when you’re 78 years old. Video went viral on Tuesday of Biden getting gingerly out of his car and walking across the sidewalk into The Queen theater in Wilmington, Delaware, where he was to announce his economic team. Halfway over, he turned toward the bank of press photographers, buttoned his elegant blue suit, and lifted his right leg to draw attention to his boot. It was a bit of bravado, so as to say, “I’m not bothered by this injury, and, actually, I’m still sharp as a tack.”
President-elect @JoeBiden debuts his newest acessory— a boot.
Biden sustained hairline fractures in his foot after he slipped and twisted his ankle while playing with his dog. pic.twitter.com/At3LfZdEjQ
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 1, 2020
It reminded me of the counter-factual jog that Biden used to do on stage early in the presidential campaign before COVID-19 confined him to barracks in Bidenville. After being introduced, he’d trot up the few steps on to the stage and then nearly skip to the waiting lectern as though full of the joys of youth. It was intended to make him look vigorous and belie his age, which had repeatedly produced stumbling debate performances, triggering questions about his ability to do the job as the oldest man ever to enter the Oval Office.
But the little jog, like the jauntily raised boot, actually drew attention to the thing they were supposed to conceal. Watching Biden doing his ready-for-action shtick is like watching (at the other end of the age spectrum) a teenager pretending to be a wine connoisseur in hope of seeming more mature than he actually is. It makes the young chap look precisely his awkward age.
Biden’s injury, trivial though it may seem, is not nothing. It’s a crack in his facade as well as in his foot. It draws attention to his fragility. It’ll heal soon enough, one supposes, and he’ll stand on the West Front of the Capitol to take the oath of office. But under the surface, he is still a very elderly gent, and four years can be a long time.
