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Nancy Pelosi sure seems to have trouble with speaking off script. She fumbles with words, rephrases her statements, and oftentimes presents facial tics that seem a bit off. And when that happens, web surfers love to call on the expertise of Dr. Internet, who is more than happy to diagnose Pelosi with dementia or other health issues.
For example, here’s a headline recently posted at a conservative website:
“Pelosi botches words, suffers face spasms, confuses Dems, GOP while vowing no border wall funding.”
It continues:
“What’s wrong with Nancy Pelosi?”
“The House Speaker spoke to reporters today for only about 21 minutes, but there were plenty of strange moments as she botched words, suffered face spasms and brain freezes . . .”
To demonstrate, the website posted this video:
That’s less than three minutes from a 20-minute presentation. Hasn’t Covington taught us anything about using edited clips?
Now that particular website is not alone, either. Joe For America asked if Nancy Pelosi had ‘dementia’ since she fumbled President Trump’s name with President Bush. Another site, News Punch, claimed “Nancy Pelosi has Stage 6 Dementia” because “six doctors” say so — even though the author doesn’t name the doctors.
However, Joe for America published its piece almost two years ago, and News Punch published their “diagnosis” last year. One thing we know about Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia is that they’re progressive illnesses, and I’m sure not much has changed about the way Pelosi fumbles verbally.
But let’s look at the other side, shall we?
Two years ago, the liberal HuffPost asked this question:
“Is Trump Suffering From Dementia?”
It cites a blogger who calls himself “The Neurocritic,” who “uses discourse analysis to assess cognitive decline.” The Neurocritic took a critical look at Trump’s word-salad style of speech, and came up with this conclusion:
“Am I going to diagnose him with anything? Of course not. That’s unethical! But I will say that since Mr. Trump has been a public figure for nearly 40 years, we can objectively analyze his spontaneous speech and quantify any changes over time. . . . We don’t know what’s normal age-related decline and what’s pathological.”
Sounds like that would confirm what the HuffPost crowd already believed. Dr. Internet made his diagnosis, and you know they can’t put anything on the Internet that isn’t true.
Credit: johnhain @ pixabay.com. Free for use.
And then there’s The Inquisitr with its hair-on-fire question:
“Does Donald Trump Have Alzheimer’s? Questions About GOP Frontrunner’s Mental Fitness Arise”
The author, whom I noticed does not have an MD or PhD after her name, insisted that Trump take a mental fitness test and release results.
Once again, this is an old article — from nearly three years ago. Has President Trump’s alleged “Alzheimer’s” progressed?
Can we just stop relying on Dr. Internet to corroborate our confirmation biases?
Neither Trump nor Pelosi speak well off-script, which is a problem a lot of people have. Our pastor, for example, has a brilliant mind — he was a geologist before he entered the seminary. His sermons are often scholarly, and he delivers them well. But his impromptu remarks after the service are a whole other country. Every other word is “um” when he’s simply trying to tell the congregation that Compassion-in-Action is having a bake sale after church.
As for Pelosi’s “face spasms” — is there a dental bridge that’s giving her trouble? Or dental implants? Or even a piece of romaine stuck behind her front teeth?
How would any of us fare if we were famous and Dr. Internet spotted us using our tongue to dislodge a popcorn hull from our back molars?
However, there’s one thing that could help with aging congress critters: term limits. Nancy Pelosi is now 78 years old, and has represented her San Francisco district for over 30 years. This should be the time Pelosi realizes that her shelf life is up, but “she isn’t going anywhere,” according to TIME. Nor does she care what anyone thinks of her. That’s no longer ‘service’ to your nation and constituency, and I think we should be more concerned with Pelosi’s attitude than her gaffes.
But until term limits becomes reality — let’s stop using Dr. Internet to diagnose politicians we don’t like with cognitive and mental illness. The diagnoses are usually wrong, and they also work both ways, don’t they?
Featured image: Brand X Studio.
Kris says: I understand your point. Wish the APA agreed (or whichever psych group thought the rules against publicly diagnosing Trump were bad policy.
Also, and I am a bit concerned about this, Nancy has been injecting a paralytics derived from a deadly toxin near her brain. In fact, most of the MSM and Cultural Media have been. Do we really know this is safe? I mean, nicotine, Vioxx, various other ‘completely safe’ drugs have been shown over the long term to have really bad consequences.
This is aside from the fact that facial expressions and emotions may be a two way interface (studies show you can improve you mood by holding a pencil in your mouth, which simulates the muscle moving into a smile. This is the ‘As If’ principle). Is it a bridge too far that paralyzing facial muscles may prevent people from experiencing needed moods for a healthy psyche?
jorod says: She is suffering from a meaningless life.
GWB says: Wow, that’s a whole apples and oranges thing comparing a bunch of leftist loons claiming a diagnosis for Trump with people who actually observe some pretty odd things with Pelosi saying “Seems something is wrong with this woman.”
Yes, some on the right are going overboard. But I’ve seen her do this over the last several years (I want to say people started noticing in 2014 or 2015), and it does NOT appear to be “I’m just too dumb to get key words right” or gaffes. The incidents I remember looked/sounded more like very small strokes. She was talking, then gibberish came out of her mouth, then she paused with an odd look, then she picked up and moved on – either unbelieving or unaware of what happened.
Now, dementia…. Yes, it can be progressive. But take it from someone who knows, that progress can be very slow. Especially if it’s retarded by treatment. But I wouldn’t claim dementia is her problem – though it might end up being a result of the strokes or whatnot.
The difference between me and those other folks – *points over there* – is I’m not claiming any authority other than reason and observation. I’m not a psychologist/psychiatrist/psychotherapist, nor do I play one in politics. I’m simply observing that some traits she has demonstrated look very much like she’s having medical/psych episodes of some sort, and everyone seems to want to ignore it.
What I see in that video above is some gaffes, some other bits that could be attributed to old age (senility is what we used to call it), a few tics (face, hands), and a bit of body motion that hints of lack of control. She seemed to be gripping that podium fairly tight, and when she let go she would sometimes sway a little.
No, Kim, I think Pelosi really has a problem. That she doesn’t want to acknowledge it will only hurt her in the long run.
GWB says: As to term limits? I’m not a fan. If you want to vote the same idiot back into office again and again, then you deserve what you get.
The ways to make perpetual election to office less harmful? Actually elect people to head the committees, instead of just leaving it to the party heads (though that’s up to the House and Senate to do, as part of their rulemaking). And, reduce the national gov’t back down to a federal gov’t of a Constitutional size in scope and power. No term limits needed if you do that.
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