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If you've been reading, listening to or watching the news lately, you've heard about the allegations that former President Joe Biden suffered a precipitous cognitive decline while in office, one that could not and apparently did not go unnoticed by Democratic lawmakers, aides, strategists and big-wig donors including Amal Clooney's husband, actor George Clooney.

Media figures Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson have recently hit the road promoting their bestselling book, "Original Sin," which, instead of reporting on the former president's issues when he was running for or in office (when it would have done a scrap of good), tells all at the safe distance of a half-year after the election.

On their worldwide tour, Tapper and Thompson crow to anyone with a satellite hookup about what they say was a concerted effort to cover up Biden's mental problems and keep him on the ballot for 2024, an undertaking they say might even be "worse than Watergate" (Tapper's words).

During a long bus tour in Iowa in 2019, the book says, Biden struggled to remember a longtime aide's name. They also relate the story of a time when Biden, at a huge Hollywood fundraiser, apparently failed to recognize Clooney, who in addition to being quite famous, was also known to the president for some time.

Doesn't sound good.

Where these Monday-morning quarterbacks were a year and a half ago, I'm not sure. Their revelations are worse than worthless now. They're mercenary.

Both Tapper and Thompson have made milquetoast acknowledgments that maybe, perhaps, it might be said that they -- as journalists and members of the news media with frequent access to high-powered Democratic officials who could have been prompted to share their allegedly dire concerns before the disastrous first debate -- well, I guess, maybe they could have done more to drag those facts into the light before their big, fat book deal had been totally squared away.

But better late than never, I guess.

The Republicans are getting their "I told you so" day, somewhat tempered by the fact that they've previously "told us" all kinds of things over the years, many of which have turned out to be ridiculous and easily debunked untruths -- things like that the government sent hurricanes to Florida because it was a red state, that former President Barack Obama's mother perpetrated a decades-long citizenship fraud to preserve her son's presidential eligibility and that Democratic vampires are running a child-abuse ring out of pizza parlors.

Tapper and Thompson's book, though, has set off a bloodthirsty reckoning in which all manner of punishment is on the table for those who swept Biden's mental decline under the rug. Congressional hearings! Jail! Execution!

Now, I will grant the infuriated multitudes that Biden clearly had signs of ill health for some time before he stepped down from the ticket. I am even willing to believe that a group of family and aides knew that Biden was unfit and tried to keep that fact a secret.

But I'm still waiting to hear the actual crime that Tapper and the other "lock 'em up gang" think was committed. I'll take just one! Helping someone hide an illness? Pretending a person is more capable than they are? Failing to force someone to step down from a job?

I tried to talk one of my parents into giving up a driver's license after a crash. If I'd failed, should I have gone to prison?

The Department of Justice doesn't investigate times when people were really uncool. They investigate crimes.

After it emerged that former President Ronald Reagan served as president twice despite having signs of Alzheimer's Disease while in office (his son saying he noticed symptoms during his father's first term), no one talked about sending Nancy Reagan to Guantanamo Bay. No one demanded that George H.W. Bush, vice president at the time, be dragged before Congress.

And that's because even if a person's behavior is questionable, unethical or just plain wrong, it does not automatically follow that said behavior is illegal. You're free to never vote for Jill Biden, free to hate Hunter Biden with a white-hot passion (my guess is that you'd be at the back of a pretty long line with that one). But we don't get to charge people with crimes because we think they're jerks.

I have a feeling that all this sturm und drang about the Biden "cover-up" is a bit performative, though. It seems more like just another wave in the outrage ocean we float on. Tomorrow, we'll be telling each other different terrible stories over the dinner table, arguing about the right punishment for another supervillain.

The scandal will likely pass, like they always do, with few lessons learned and no responsibility taken, no preventive measures applied for the inevitable next time. It will be just another sad tale, from a different mouthpiece, for the benefit of nothing and no one besides the storyteller's bank account.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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