How did this happen?

Josh Hawley once joked that his U.S. Senate lapel pin doubles as a “Life Alert” button. People laugh because they know many politicians serve well into their 80s. On the other hand, as Hillary Clinton’s campaign put it in a memorable 2016 TV ad, the president must always be ready for the 3 a.m. call to the bright red phone. That tension was singularly embodied in the first, last, and only presidential term of Joe Biden.

In their new book Original Sin (Penguin, 352 pp.), journalists Jake Tapper (CNN) and Alex Thompson (Axios) provide an in-depth account of, in the words of the subtitle, “President Biden’s decline, its cover-up, and his disastrous choice to run again.”

The Biblically inspired title Original Sin implies that President Biden started his term in office incapable of doing the job—that his evident problems of mental acuity and cognitive capacity were present from the beginning. And indeed, the authors include a short section suggesting staff and associates had seen significant warning signs prior to 2020. Yet curiously, given the title, they insist in the introduction he was fine and capable all the way up to 2023, suggesting later that perhaps it was the guilty verdict in Hunter Biden’s trial that radically accelerated his decline into decrepitude.

As is often the case with books about Washington, this one is drenched in gossip, lets anonymous sources off the hook in exchange for dishing those juicy morsels, and does some serious vicarious score settling along the way of reporting the core story. But in spite of the political tittle-tattle, Tapper and Thompson tread lightly when laying blame.

Pretty much everyone in the Democratic Party—Congress, Cabinet, Democratic National Committee, even White House staff—is given a pass as the pair lay blame for the cover-up on a Praetorian Guard of six or so top staffers for Joe and Jill. The staff used COVID and other excuses to constantly contract the circle of those who had access to the president so no one would know how bad it really was. Though the first lady and Biden family are tangential characters in that drama—and Jill is often cited in the story—whether she was a modern day Edith Wilson is never directly explored. Nor does Vice President Harris enter the narrative in a serious way until nearly the end.

The authors never ask the hard question—why did no Democrats express any public concern about the president’s health prior to the June 2024 debate debacle? And if it was because they didn’t ever see him, how was that inaccessibility not itself a scandal?

The pair also give the news media covering the president a pass—the staff limited access and would pounce hard on any journalist who asked about his health, so what else were they to do? That excuse is thin gruel when most Americans believe a Republican president would never have gotten similar kid-gloves treatment.

The book is a quick read, entertaining for those who enjoy the blow-by-blow narratives of White House reporting. And it is only a first draft of history—much more will come out in the near future as the Cabinet secretaries and staff publish their memoirs, and then the real historians will begin their work soon after that. For now, Original Sin raises as many questions as it answers. Who knew? Who lied? And who turned an intentional blind eye? Those questions are important and deserve answers: It’s hard not to become outraged at what happened as you read this book.