The Sound a Penny Makes When It Drops
McCain's behavior over the course of this election season makes a lot more sense when you start with the assumption that he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
I'm not kidding: eight years ago he'd gained a reputation for being whip-smart in public engagements (albeit full of shit), but now he's a bigger gaffe machine than Biden. And not the easily explainable kind of gaffe, either: confusing Zapatero with Zapata is just this side of comprehensible even if extremely queer given the context, but calling Putin the prime minister of Germany, repeatedly asserting that Iran has been training and funding al Qaeda in Iraq, and blundering into GWB levels of incoherence at the drop of a hat are not the sort of thing he's known for. It's new. Makes a lot more sense when you're expecting increasing difficulties with semantic memory, a shrinking vocabulary and decreasing fluency. His latest stunt, an attempt to postpone the debate with Obama has the stink of fear and desperation about it. Then there's all the blinking during public speaking.
His dad and grandad both died before they reached his age, so we don't have a family history to check. But he's on statins, which raises his risk profile. If I'm right, apraxia should be next on the symptom list and we should know for sure in about four years given the typical rate of deterioration. Anybody want to play Russian Roulette?
I'm not kidding: eight years ago he'd gained a reputation for being whip-smart in public engagements (albeit full of shit), but now he's a bigger gaffe machine than Biden. And not the easily explainable kind of gaffe, either: confusing Zapatero with Zapata is just this side of comprehensible even if extremely queer given the context, but calling Putin the prime minister of Germany, repeatedly asserting that Iran has been training and funding al Qaeda in Iraq, and blundering into GWB levels of incoherence at the drop of a hat are not the sort of thing he's known for. It's new. Makes a lot more sense when you're expecting increasing difficulties with semantic memory, a shrinking vocabulary and decreasing fluency. His latest stunt, an attempt to postpone the debate with Obama has the stink of fear and desperation about it. Then there's all the blinking during public speaking.
His dad and grandad both died before they reached his age, so we don't have a family history to check. But he's on statins, which raises his risk profile. If I'm right, apraxia should be next on the symptom list and we should know for sure in about four years given the typical rate of deterioration. Anybody want to play Russian Roulette?