Joe Biden’s personal office released a statement tonight announcing that he has been diagnosed with aggressive and advanced prostate cancer. It is terrible news, and despite what the press release says about the illness being “responsive to hormone treatments,” the prognosis for the 82-year-old former president is likely dire. My first reaction is to offer prayers for Biden and his family — as one who lost his mother suddenly and not so long ago to the side effects of treatment for an aggressive form of cancer, I revert to that instinct first.

My second reaction, of course, is to ask the same the question many others are this Sunday night: How are we only discovering this now? Recall that less than a year ago, Joe Biden was running for another four years as president of the United States. The man was supposedly healthy as a horse, according to the White House and most of the mainstream media, which ate out of the White House’s cupped hands. Had Biden won, he would currently be three months into a four-year term.

Now, he has metastatic prostate cancer that has spread to his bones. Had he won, would we know about this diagnosis ? And given the likely answer to that question, ask yourself the necessary follow-up: Why should we believe that this is the first time the Bidens have known? I know only one thing: All presidential physicians, from the era of Woodrow Wilson onward at least, should be presumed to be well-paid official liars working for the men and women surrounding the president and not in interests of the American people.

Boy, this sure is not going to dampen interest in that new book coming out this week, now is it?