Presidential candidates are not required to pass mental health exams or psychological and psychiatric evaluations.  But at a minimum, they should be strongly encouraged to take them, just as they are presumed to participate in debates.  

According to a Politico and Morning Consult poll, only 40% of respondents believe that Biden is mentally fit; 48% say he's not. 

Usually, presidential wannabes are buffeted by a barrage of trials on the trail.  Their responses to intense public scrutiny should give us insights into their communication skills, intelligence, and temperament.  But they don't always reveal other traits required to be an effective president, such as leadership, judgment, honesty, and problem-solving prowess, especially when a cloistered candidate is coddled by corrupt media.

A cognitive test would help, especially when the candidate is a septuagenarian or a confused progressive.  Instead of a debate host asking candidates to raise their hands if they support unlimited health care for illegal aliens, a more appropriate question might be:  "Who here would be willing to take a cognitive test?  Please raise your hand."

Even a mental midget like Biden would be obliged to comply.  Inevitably, he'd flunk, and even low-information voters would need to determine if they hate the other candidate(s) so much as to elect a complete imbecile.  Caveat emptor: you may end up with someone stupider than the village idiot.

Why would Biden inevitably flunk the test?  Well, the Montreal Cognitive Assessment is commonly used to screen for dementia.  Consider some of the cognitive domains it assesses and how Biden would likely respond:

Orientation: The test administrator asks Biden to state the date, month, year, day, place, and city.  Blimey, on the presidential campaign trail, Biden thought he was running for Senate.  Much of the time, he seems disoriented, not oriented, and dependent on his wife to take his hand and lead him away.  Frankly, he's an empty suit who doesn't even know what year it is, let alone the day.

Short-term memory: Um, one of the most important cabinet positions is secretary of defense, but Biden couldn't remember his name.  Oh, dear, what's next?  Forgetting Putin's name, instead calling him "the guy who runs Russia"?  He already refers to Kamala Harris as "President Harris."  What a moron and embarrassment to our great country of irredeemables.

Language abilities: Biden can't even read properly from a teleprompter, and his rhetoric is confounding.  He recently responded to a reporter's question about civility by suggesting that his clear and obvious Bull Connor allusion "is an interesting reading of English."  Examples of his nonsensical language are prolific, but his response to a simple question about the pandemic suggests he belongs in a nursing home, not the White House.  Take his hand and lead him that way, Jill.  Please!

Abstraction: This one asks Biden, or any confused progressive, to explain how two things are alike.  The problem is, Biden sees relationships that are tenuous at best.  The spike in crime is caused by COVID.  Inflation is caused by COVID, but a spending circus will fix it.  In fact, everything bad is caused by COVID.  And, infamously, those who support voting integrity, including voter ID laws — that would be about 70% of registered voters — are like Bull Connor.  It's truly bizarre, the likenesses the old curmudgeon is able to conjure, while truly missing cause and effect.

Attention: The test-taker is asked to repeat a series of numbers forward and then a different series backward.  Well, Biden is about as bad with numbers as he is with taming inflation.  The idiot claimed that 150 million Americans died from guns and 120 million from COVID-19.  He's just as bad with people as numbers, but at least he didn't call the reporter in this example of forgetting a recently asked question a stupid SOB. 

Clock-drawing: The test asks respondents to draw a clock that reads ten minutes past eleven.  Now, how could Biden possibly do that?  He rarely sees those clock hands because it's during his extended lunchtime nap in the morning, and way past his evening bedtime.  Have you seen how often and long Biden looks at his watch for it to sink in?

Scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment range from zero to 30; the average score is 27.  It's really hard to see Biden scoring above his shoe size, which would put him in the severe cognitive impairment camp.  No wonder his bunker seemed so cozy.  I doubt your average progressive would do much better, because they are mad, being riddled with cognitive distortions.  Their neural pathways need recalibration to grasp reality.

Members of Congress, led by former White House physician Ronny Jackson, are calling on Biden to take a cognitive test.  It may be too late. The upshot of it all, per the 25th Amendment, is that if deemed unfit, then his responsibilities would be transferred to the vice president.  This is not a satisfactory outcome. 

We can learn a lesson: while the MSM will always propagandize on behalf of Democrats, we can shame presidential candidates into taking a cognitive test just as debates have become a rite of passage on the campaign trail.  Here's a reasonable request from a debate moderator: "Candidates, please raise your hand if you'd agree to take a cognitive test." 

Many jobs require an apprenticeship or tutelage phase.  Lots of presidential candidates are old or just plain stupid.  Shouldn't America's most important job require a cognitive test before giving over the launch codes?  It can be administered remotely.  It takes only about 10–15 minutes, and it could save us from four years of the worst president and vice president ever.  Raise your hand.

Image: Screen shot from WSJ video via YouTube.