Biden needs to be public about his stutter

Democrat contender should speak out before foes do, says John M. Richardson.

The latest poll suggests that in a volatile field of potential U.S. presidential candidates, Joe Biden has returned to first-place position, with 24-per-cent support. But can he hold on to his lead? There are doubts about the 77-yearold’s mental capacity and stamina.

Exhibit A in Biden’s apparent mental slippage is a video of him appearing to forget former president Barack Obama’s name during an Aug. 28 town hall. Talking about President Donald Trump’s accusation that the Russian invasion of Crimea was Obama’s fault, he tells the audience “He’s saying it was President … my boss. It was his fault!”

Except that wasn’t a memory slip. As John Hendrickson argues in The Atlantic, the video captures a substitution caused by stuttering. Watching the video, I recognize the telltale pause as Biden realizes that he is either going to get blocked on the “b” of Obama or perhaps not be able to reach for the “O” at all.

I feel for him. As a stutterer myself, I do that kind of thing all the time. I can’t explain much about stuttering except that I’ve always done it. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why I do it.

Biden has stuttered since childhood. Me too. My mother once said that my stuttering began when she tried placing me in preschool. She blamed herself for precipitating a childhood stutter that never let go.

Do I always stutter? No. Perhaps like Biden, I feel at ease when speaking to a crowd while wearing a suit and reading from a script. I never encounter problems when talking to babies, singing, whispering, talking to a dog, or acting. I know: it’s weird.

Is there a pattern? Not really. This morning, I opened my eyes, swung my legs out of bed, tried to make a comment on the cool breeze wafting in from the window, and got stuck on the letter “c.” Biking to the gym with my wife 20 minutes later, I rattled off my plan for the day.

Some people assume that I stutter because I’m anxious. Is that true? Not usually. But when I’m excessively tired it feels as if the signals along the pathways between brain and mouth haplessly spark, fuse and fizzle.

What does it feel like? Like reaching into the pantry for a can and discovering a space on the shelf. When a word is blocked, like running into a wall. When my lips can’t keep up with my thoughts, like pulling tangled sheets from the wash.

How does it make me feel? Tired. Frustrated. Embarrassed. Dogged. Guilty like a perpetually failing dieter because I’m not sufficiently self-disciplined to take myself in hand.

It’s persistent and yet unpredictable. Sometimes, sometimes, I see my way through to accepting it as part of who I am. Mostly, I get on as best I can.

Biden tends not to talk about his stutter. When it happens, like in the town hall, he tries to cover it up. I do that, too. But as he enters the crucible of the late-stage primaries and then perhaps the presidential race itself, he should talk about it. Stuttering is part of who he is too. It isn’t going away. And if he doesn’t talk about it, his eventual opponent most certainly will.

Dr. John M. Richardson is an Ottawa writer and educator.