I’m almost young enough to be Joe Biden’s son. (But I’m not.)

When I see the doctor for my annual physical, she typically tells me at the outset that she wants me to remember three arbitrary words – something like “elephant, ice and automobile” – and intends to ask me what the three words are at the end of my examination.

I always see it as a challenge. At the end, I’ll remind her impishly, “Didn’t you intend to ask me what the three words are?”

“Oh, right,” she’ll reply.

That’s my cue: “The words are ‘elephant, automobile and ice’ except you asked me to remember them in the order ‘elephant, ice and automobile.’ By the way, did you know that elephants are closely related to mammoths, and that mammoths survived almost into recorded history? It’s thought that humans coming to the New World were responsible in part for their extinction – they hunted the mammoths to extinction. Those native Americans weren’t living in such harmony with nature after all.”

She’ll roll her eyes, convinced that I’m not senile but might well be something worse.

I report this because Joe Biden has doctors too. As an 81-year-old, he’s undoubtedly given at least informal cognitive tests by those doctors, similar to the one my doctor gives me. In view of his significant seniority over me, and the apparent diminution in his cognition, he’s probably given tests more formal than mine. It would be medical malpractice not to give him such tests.

Donald Trump appropriately noted in the debate that he himself has taken and aced such tests, and released them to the public during his presidency. That is true.

But Trump uncharacteristically understated his case in challenging Biden to take such tests too.

The fact is, almost certainly, that Biden has indeed taken such tests. The fact that he hasn’t released the results tells you volumes. As if you need to be told anything more after his performance last night.