Just because something is plausible, doesn’t mean it’s true. (Consider the books of Edward Klein.) But it’s hard not to look at the fly-on-the-wall description in the Wall Street Journal story that has D.C. Dems made and view it as exactly the way that things are in the White House.

The named sources for the story were Republicans. (Like any high-ranking Dem will be caught dead discussing Biden’s senility on the record.) And Dems rushed to testify that Biden is really a genius.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat who attended, said Biden was “incredibly strong, forceful and decisive.” The White House provided similar statements from two top officials who attended: Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Deputy National Security Adviser Jon Finer. Bates, the White House spokesman, said no one in the room said anything at the time about having trouble hearing Biden.

Whom do you believe? Turn back to the opening of the Time Magazine interview transcript.

Biden: Yes, we’re planning even more. We are, we are the world power. And what I inherited, as a consequence of the mistake that we made in Afghanistan is a—was not a loss in Afghanistan, excuse my cold. But I think that, look, I believe, I have a fundamentally different view than Mr. Trump has on a range of things. Number one: I really believe that we have a values-based as well as practical-based alliances around the world. And he, Trump, wanted to just abandon them. He says he’s practical, one-on-one things he’s doing.

This is borderline gibberish.

Combine that with the Hur report and insisting that Biden is “incredibly strong, forceful and decisive” is just delusional. We’ve seen him speak, we have transcripts of him struggling to make sense and we have the Hur report. Where are the examples of Biden being on top of things? They’re a little hard to come by.

What the above quoted scene in the WSJ story really captures though is Biden as the President-in-Absentia. Unable to follow discussions or really contribute to them, he struggles with the most basic demands of a very demanding job, and America’s power and prestige are slipping away as a result.

I’m not one of those people who insist he’s a helpless dementia patient who doesn’t know where he is. But neither is he on top of things, capable of grasping the details of his job, or making the case for his agenda. In no small part because his agenda is staying in power and trying to conceal the worst-kept secret ever.

Who’s running the country?

Biden deferred so frequently to other lawmakers that much of the conversation didn’t include him, some people who attended the meeting recalled. When questions came directly to him, he would turn to staffers, they said.

This guy is running it in the same sense that European monarchs who functioned marginally ran things. Which is to say that the aides and advisers run things and they occasionally turn to Biden to sign off on something, listen to the same story or joke they heard 5,000 times, and then do what they want to do anyway.