To foster the appearance of Balance, large swathes of the mainstream press will lavish coverage on the mistakes and shortcomings of the Democratic nominee for president until they somehow rival those of Donald Trump. This approach to political coverage manifested itself in 2016 with Hillary Clinton's email protocol earning hugely outsized coverage—in terms of volume and tenor—so the press could say it was Tough On Both Sides, not just on the viciously racist guy with no discernible qualifications for the job. That said, Joe Biden's issues need an airing.

The latest episode involves a story the Democratic frontrunner has made a habit of telling on the campaign trail. The Washington Post dug into it, and the results are not hugely positive for Biden.

The Navy captain, Biden recalled Friday night, had rappelled down a 60-foot ravine under fire and retrieved the body of an American comrade, carrying him on his back. Now the general wanted Biden to pin a Silver Star on the American hero who, despite his bravery, felt like a failure.

“He said, ‘Sir, I don’t want the damn thing!’ ” Biden said, his jaw clenched and his voice rising to a shout. “ ‘Do not pin it on me, Sir! Please, Sir. Do not do that! He died. He died!’"

The room was silent.

“This is the God’s truth,” Biden had said as he told the story. “My word as a Biden.”

Seems OK so far, right? Well...

In the space of three minutes, Biden got the time period, the location, the heroic act, the type of medal, the military branch and the rank of the recipient wrong, as well as his own role in the ceremony.

Biden has made a number of troubling missteps on the campaign trail. Boston Globe Getty Images

This is not great, and the conservative infotainment vortex has already seized on it, comparing Biden to other war-story fabulists like Brian Williams. The emerging consensus seems to be that Biden lied here, and he didn't help much when he addressed it:

“I was making the point how courageous these people are, how incredible they are, this generation of warriors, these fallen angels we’ve lost,” he said. “I don’t know what the problem is. What is it that I said wrong?”

This has launched some think-pieces on whether this is symptomatic of the post-truth world the current president has ushered in, where the facts and the details don't matter much—or often, in fact, are irrelevant—when you're in pursuit of some larger goal. Just say whatever. I'm trying to share a tale of bravery and sacrifice, Biden seems to be saying. Are the details really that important?

But another explanation, and surely an even more worrying one, is that Biden is legitimately confused. The Post suggests he combined three different stories, and he still doesn't seem to be aware that's what happened. Moreover, time after time on the campaign trail this year, the former vice president has showed troubling signs of poor cognitive performance. Yes, Biden has always made a huge number of "gaffes"—a now-meaningless term when the president can be found on any given Thursday having a full-on meltdown on the White House lawn—but the more recent episodes seem different.

Here he is earlier in the week:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Did he...did he forget Obama's name? Even Biden's staffers would admit that the central argument for a President Biden is that he was vice president under Barack Obama. And yet he seems to completely blank here.

This is also from the last week:

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Declaring that you're "not going nuts" is not the best way to assure people you're firing on all cylinders. Speaking of New Hampshire:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Joe Biden in Keene, New Hampshire: "I’ve been here a number of times...I love this place. Look, what’s not to like about Vermont in terms of the beauty of it?” pic.twitter.com/YZBP4ybQ3z — Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) August 24, 2019

Ideally, the president should know where he is at all times.

And here's some balance: Donald Trump caught a huge amount of flak for mistaking Dayton, Ohio, for "Toledo" as the site of a mass shooting. But Biden had a tough time, too:

This content is imported from Twitter. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

At a fundraiser on Sunday, Joe Biden referred to mass shootings in “Houston today” and Michigan yesterday, @LAWinkley reports. The shootings were in Dayton and El Paso, respectively. pic.twitter.com/EvppvklkvZ — Dan Diamond (@ddiamond) August 5, 2019

Biden also struggled to place the Parkland shootings.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

The Parkland shooting was in 2017, after Biden had left office. He did not meet survivors as vice president.

He also mixed up the timing on the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

Both were assassinated in 1968, not "the late '70s, when I got engaged."

He also had some timing issues when it came to who's currently the prime minister of Great Britain.

This content is imported from YouTube. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.

These are fairly concerning issues. The candidate is struggling to place people and events within space and time. We're not even broaching the incidents where Biden merely seemed to misspeak, like when he called for "truth over facts" or suggested "poor kids are just as smart as white kids." The latter may betray some deeper biases, but it doesn't seem like a cognitive issue in the same way that thinking the Iron Lady is still knuckling the Commies over in Parliament is. Any of us might make one of these mistakes in isolation, but would we make all of them? And it's true that Biden has always blundered in public, but has he always done so this often, and with such foundational errors? That's not even to mention that "he's always fucked up regularly" is not a great argument for electing someone president.

It's all particularly pressing because one of the biggest concerns about Donald Trump, American president, concerns his faculties—specifically, whether he has all of them. You don't need to be a psychologist to see the issues, though some psychologists have spoken out. By the evidence of his early primary campaign, Joe Biden would not exactly represent the most striking possible contrast on the debate stage. He is 76 years old. Trump is 73. Is it ageist to wonder how old you can be and still handle the rigors of running for and serving as president? It seems like a question that ought to be asked, and it can be asked without equating Biden's issues with those of the venal and destructive man currently holed up in the White House.

That's particularly true because Biden isn't actually running against Trump yet. He's running against a dozen other Democrats, each of whom has issues of their own. But not these issues.

Jack Holmes Politics Editor Jack Holmes is the Politics Editor at Esquire, where he writes daily and edits the Politics Blog with Charles P Pierce.

This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io