The irrelevance of Biden’s senility

An old saying warns that we are better off knowing neither the process by which our dinner is made nor the process by which we are governed.

That bon mot seems first to have been printed in 1798, ascribed to Nicolas Chamfort, the witty noble-born secretary of the Jacobin Club who had committed suicide rather than endure a second imprisonment under Robespierre – although its best-known form, likening the making of laws to the making of sausages, is often misattributed to German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck.

In the era in which that saying originated, before the advent of radio or television, that saying gave thanks for a reality: Few people knew the details of how they were governed, just as few townsfolk slaughtered and butchered their own meat or manured the fields that grew the grain for their bread.

Few people saw their rulers save on ceremonial occasions or heard them speak at length extemporaneously. Few read speeches or writings by their rulers that had not been carefully prepared and edited.

The inner workings of Elizabeth Tudor’s privy council, of Talleyrand’s or Metternich’s foreign ministry, of Abraham Lincoln’s cabinet, or of Bismarck’s chancery, were largely unknown to the public until decades or centuries later.

Rulers were loved or loathed, and remained or fell, based on the quality of governance they provided – on the quality of the sausage, not on how it was made. They were judged on the aptness and results of their policies, not on any personal characteristics. Having incentives to govern well, they often did so.

How senile was George Washington by 1797, when, at age 65, he ceased to be president of the United States? The evidence now available suggests that he was far less sharp during his second term