The visual is what's haunting Biden

A repeat of his #SOTU performance is the imperative in ATL next Thursday.

It’s a quaint, if template, political diagnosis for any flailing incumbent toiling through the systole and diastole of early summer political examination: Do better explaining to people exactly what you’ve done for them. Then, pivot to what your misanthrope opponent would take away.

For President Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., this could mean unleashing his trademark empathy to recognize the economic anxiety of Americans, even if the urge is to lean into the reams of favorable fiscal data. It might mean talking up the investments — the plants, the bridges, the water systems — that are coming to a swing state near you with a sled of jobs and revitalization. It will very likely mean raising the reproductive rights and health care coverage Donald Trump would rip away and the migrant families he’d tear apart.

But in recent weeks, as I’ve eyeballed the 46th president, what’s fixated in my head is the images. Images that depict a discomfited glassy-eyed elderly man,