OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
A noted presidential historian had some bad news for Joe Biden following his angry State of the Union Address regarding how he is likely to be viewed in the future by “honest” brokers.
Ronald Reagan biographer Craig Shirley made his remarks about the current commander-in-chief in response to a new survey of “scholars” putting who put Biden ahead of the Gipper as the 14th “greatest president” in the history of the country.
“It made me gag,” Shirley said, describing the “Presidential Greatness Project” experts as left-wing academics.
“Joe Biden is a terrible, terrible person. He is going to go down in history by honest historians as the worst president in American history,” he told the Washington Examiner.
Shirley, who recently unveiled his latest book, “The Search for Reagan,” and is launching a biography of former President Donald Trump, didn’t pause his remarks there.
“The idea that Joe Biden is a great president is just nonsense. It’s poppycock. It’s ridiculous. Name one thing that he’s been successful at other than spending money, and, by the way, any moron can spend money,” he told the Examiner.
The outlet added:
The survey was of members of the American Political Science Association who specialize in national and presidential politics. Presidents were ranked on a 0-100 scale.
The top five were not surprising for the liberal scholars. In order, they were Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, George Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Thomas Jefferson.
The next five were more controversial: Harry Truman at No. 6, followed by Barack Obama, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson, and John F. Kennedy. Reagan was 16th and Trump dead last at No. 45.
Examining the placement of Trump and Reagan also prompted a response from Shirley, who noted that despite their stark differences, the two former presidents shared remarkable similarities on critical issues.
“Personally, their worlds apart. They’re different. They’re different men, but that’s just how they approach politics and life and culture and society,” Shirley said, noting the difference in the country between today and the early 1980s.
Nevertheless, he added: “The parallels are clear, more clear than I think people realize. One is that they both challenge authority. They both challenge the Washington establishment.”
A report on Friday quoted a psychiatrist who has worked with elderly and dementia patients for years who claimed that President Joe Biden appeared to be on some form of medication during his raucous, anger-filled State of the Union Address a day earlier.
Dr. Carole Lieberman, a forensic psychiatrist based in Beverly Hills, said that “Biden exhibited signs of stimulant use to mask cognitive decline in his amped-up, aggressive” speech, the Washington Times reported.
Biden, 81, often appeared to speed through his remarks and raise his voice despite the fact that he had a microphone in front of him. The Times said that “speed and volume of speech can be a sign of using Adderall or another amphetamine,” according to Lieberman.
“If you look at how Joe Biden usually is — slow and stumbling — compared to how he was during the State of the Union — fiery and angry — these are signs that are typical for someone taking Adderall or any amphetamine,” she said.
The Times noted further:
Dr. Lieberman, who has not personally examined the president, said the signs of potential pharmaceutical use go beyond how Mr. Biden spoke during the nearly 90-minute speech, but also in his mannerisms.
For example, Mr. Biden typically rests his hands on the podium while delivering a speech from the teleprompter. During the State of the Union, he frequently gestured and moved with his hands at a rapid rate, she said.
Other times, Biden slurred his words, which is not out of the ordinary for him, she explained, but he did so at a much faster, more animated pace, suggesting he was “psychopharmacology helped.”
“It was a word salad on speed,” she said.