I normally try to keep my comments in this column limited to local issues and things happening at the Capitol in Lansing, but Democrats who control the House have not held a vote or a real session day since the budget was finished at the end of June.

That being the case, I want to talk about something that has been bugging me: the apparent widespread effort to hide President Biden’s condition from the public.

About three months ago, the national media was flooded with news stories about supposed “cheap fake” videos of President Biden freezing up and looking confused in public.

The term “cheap fake” is a new term that means real videos that are deceptively edited, or that don’t show what they claim to show. Cheap fake is a play on the term “deep fake,” which refers to fake but super-realistic looking videos made using artificial intelligence.

The Biden videos are real videos taken in public by news organizations that were then shared on social media, but the White House used the term “cheap fake” to discredit them. They tried to convince you that what you were seeing was not real. Some in the national media helped with the deception.

Here’s a June 21 headline from the New York Times: “How misleading videos are trailing Biden as he battles age doubts.”

The Washington Post gave “Four Pinocchios” to the videos.

Then the debate happened. Live, unedited, unfiltered, for everyone to see. President Biden struggled to complete sentences and was often incoherent.

The White House later claimed he had a cold and when that didn’t work, said he was still suffering from jet lag (even though he spent a week before the debate resting).

Then he was swiftly forced off the ticket. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi even admitted he was pressured to step aside.

Some reporters in the national media who cover the president every day acted like they had no idea, as if they were surprised to see that President Biden is suffering from mental decline. Even though it has been apparent for a long time. 

Others revealed that they knew months ago that the president frequently forgets the names of people he has known for years. Why are you just now coming forward with that reporting?

Here in Michigan, we are fortunate to have, I think, a pretty good Capitol press corps who are mostly fair, as well as earnest local reporters who prioritize accurate reporting. But this situation has revealed that much of our national media is rotten.

Meanwhile, our governor, who is close to President Biden, continued to say that Biden is up for the moment, when he clearly was not.

Gov. Whitmer, while on a national book tour promoting her book “True Gretch,” defended the President’s mental fitness during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” but by her appearance with Stephen Colbert, she admitted that it probably wouldn’t hurt for the president to take a cognitive exam.  

It makes me sad to see what has happening to our commander in chief. But I am glad to see that the mask has finally dropped and that reporters and government officials who told you Biden is fine have finally been exposed.

Our democracy depends on honest reporting and honest public servants who put the country first. And the public deserves to hear from Vice President Harris about what she knew of Biden’s condition.

The world has two major wars going on right now, in Ukraine and Gaza, and we are potentially on the brink of wider conflict. For the good of our country, and the good of President Biden himself, it’s time for him to step down, or the cabinet should invoke the 25^th amendment to remove him from office.