. . .leaving the question of Trump’s mental condition to a group of professionals is an avoidance strategy that is becoming more transparently irresponsible by the day.

For journalists, the conflict over how and whether to address the issue is growing with every one of Trump’s outbursts. At what point do the news pages (in addition to the opinion pages) weigh in? Is there a danger of trivializing mental-health issues through armchair commentary? Is this even a useful storyline, given that the president’s true mental state is essentially unknowable to any outsider, not least reporters?

The journalistic conflict came to a head about a week ago with the publication, on two consecutive days, of two letters in The New York Times. The first, written by two psychiatrists and signed by, as the Times stated, “33 other psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers,” began by attributing the “silence from the country’s mental health organizations”—and by implication, the media where these organizations could make themselves heard—to the “American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Goldwater rule,” an edict that must have been as obscure to other readers as it was to me. This rule, the letter explained, prohibited the psychological evaluation of public figures.

. . .

The manner in which the question of Trump’s mental health has to be handled once it is raised is obvious, of course. The more contentious question has been whether to raise it, and to keep raising it. At this point, not to do so, especially for journalists, is a betrayal of the public trust, a denial of human nature, and an insult to posterity.