Fox News marked the death of Beau Biden, the son of Joe Biden, by psychoanalyzing the vice president with the help of Dr. Keith Ablow, who had once accused the vice president of having dementia and being a drunk.
May 31, 2015

Fox News marked the death of Beau Biden, the son of Joe Biden, by psychoanalyzing the vice president with the help of Dr. Keith Ablow, who had once accused the vice president of having dementia and being a drunk.

"I would say to the vice president or anybody in his position, this is something you will struggle with for a very long time," Ablow told the hosts of Fox & Friends on Sunday. "The way to try to heal, of course, is to try to say let's look at this person's accomplishments, look at their children and try to emulate the best of them going forward."

"What is the natural reaction Joe Biden will be suffering?" host Peter Johnson wondered. "Will he become depressed as a result of this?"

"Families in political life, families who have served may be more resilient than others," Ablow speculated. "They have a context for their suffering. They want to make contributions. And so I don't expect -- I mean, it would be a human thing if the vice president were to become depressed. Who might not?"

"However, he is a resilient man," the doctor added. "He lived through the loss of this wife and another child. And I would expect him to double his involvement with this family, if that's even possible because we know him to be a very involved family man. But even more so to do that. And to be aware of those -- parts of the pattern of Beau Biden that he bumps into. Right? Memories of him, not to run away from those things, but to embrace them because this man lived a rich and textured life."

Following a 2012 vice presidential debate, however, Ablow's analysis of Biden was not as charitable.

"I did not evaluate Joe Biden but if someone said to me, 'Listen, we want you to do what’s really required to know what happened there,' you have to put 'dementia' on the differential diagnosis," Ablow explained to the hosts of Fox & Friends at the time. "If this were your Dad or your grandfather, wouldn’t you say, if you brought him to me, 'Keith, you gotta tell me, is he suffering with dementia? Because he can’t seem to listen, he’s laughing inappropriately.'"

"Not knowing every fact isn’t required to diagnose dementia and I’m not saying he has it," he said, adding, "So, you’d want his alcohol level. Why? Because he was that bizarre."

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