The popular vote loser may have passed his physical but…
As a psychiatrist for the United States Air Force, one of my responsibilities was evaluating the mental stability of airmen who handled nuclear weapons, using the standards laid out in what is called the Nuclear Personnel Reliability Program. There is no need to justify why our military would take every precaution necessary to ensure that the men and women in uniform handling nuclear weapons were fit to do so, whether they were in charge of a missile silo or loading nuclear bombs onto aircraft — or giving the orders to them, on up the chain of command. Strangely, the commander-in-chief, the one who would decide when and how to use those weapons, is the only individual in the chain who is not subject to the ongoing certification under the program.
The topic of presidential fitness and cognitive decline has always been a legitimate issue. The ability for the Executive Office to function effectively and without exposing the American people to undue danger relies on the mental faculties of the one person inhabiting its walls. Former President Jimmy Carter pointed this out in an article he wrote for The Journal of the American Medical Association in 1994, in which he warned that our country is in “continuing danger” from the possibility that a president could become disabled “particularly by a neurological illness.” Revelations that President Ronald Reagan may have had early-stage Alzheimer’s while he was president add to these concerns.
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