“We ain’t gettin’ any younger.”
How many times have we heard this oft-employed saying while impatiently waiting for someone or something to materialize. The words are one of those truisms that everyone knows, yet they still emphasize an important point – time is fleeting, and precious.
Needless to say, the “age” topic has been brought up a lot lately, specifically in reference to current president senile Joe Biden, a politician who already set records for oldest American commander-in-chief and has stirred news buzz due to his obstinate refusal to acknowledge his age-related slowness as well as stubbornly refusing to step aside to allow for some other, much younger Democrat to take his place in a certain presidential race against septuagenarian Republican former president Donald Trump.
Should we be talking about senile Joe’s actual age -- again? Is it fair game? In an article titled “Hillary Clinton says Biden’s age is ‘legitimate issue,’ but he should ‘lean in’ to experience”, Lauren Irwin reported last week at The Hill:
“Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that while she thinks President Biden’s age, which is a growing topic of concern among voters, is a ‘legitimate issue,’ she advised him to ‘lean in’ to his years of experience.
“’I talked to people in the White House all the time, and you know, they know it’s an issue, but as I like to say, look, it’s a legitimate issue,’ Clinton told MSNBC’s Alex Wagner in a sit-down interview... ‘It’s a legitimate issue for [former President] Trump who’s only three years younger. So, it’s an issue.’ The former first lady continued, saying it could be difficult for both Biden and Trump to connect with certain voters, because of their age. Instead, she said the president should focus more on the wisdom he’s gained over the years.
“’I think Biden also should lean into the fact that he’s experienced and that experience is not just in the political arena. It’s like, the stuff of, you know, human experience,’ she said. ‘I think he should be willing to really pull that out … and I think he should care more about it.’”
Human experience? Pfft. With the exception of the tragedies in his life, Joe Biden has led an existence about as far removed from “human” as anyone could get outside of being born royal – or being whelped in a dog kennel. His “experience” is going to and from a great big marble building packed with sycophants, servants (otherwise called staffers) and ego maniacal glory-seekers – and a few good soul conservatives to try and keep the place sane.
What “human experience” would senile Joe share? The notion is laughable. Literally.
Everyone talks about Biden’s age, but endless discussion over his mounting time on earth really just masks the real issue – namely, the fact that his numerical number is a convenient means to deflect from his diminished cognitive capacity. Human beings over eighty, according to scholarly treatises and common experience, lose some of their ability to reason, rationalize, remember, articulate, see, hear… and lack the get-up-and-go energy of younger folks.
There are exceptions. We all know seasoned citizens who “function” at very high levels with advanced age. So, the rap is not absolute.
If the controversy were truly only about age, wouldn’t it make sense to anoint a new law school graduate (or perhaps even younger) to take over, one who, theoretically speaking (depending on how much time he or she spent partying in the dorm), would possess not only physical vigor but also has a brain firing on all neurons? When is an adult the “sharpest” of his or her lifetime? Or when would he or she reach the apex of his or her ability to take in information, process it and produce a well-reasoned deduction?
No, Joe Biden’s age continues to be a problem because he’s obviously well past his zenith of cognitive ability. In senile Joe’s case, here’s guessing his maximum thinking moment arrived before he even moved to Washington. And it shouldn’t be forgotten (by him or anyone else) that Biden has had brain surgery – twice – to correct brain aneurysms.
If it were any other person, we’d be celebrating the fact that this limited-ability octogenarian went as far as he did in life. Where many people debate whether to retire in their fifties these days – if they’ve got the means to do so – senile Joe still (supposedly) rises every morning and is instantly fed a steady diet of material about the highest of high-level stuff.
Would Biden at age 70, or 65, have been that much more capable of ingesting the data and being able to produce “correct” suppositions? Here’s thinking senile Joe’s definitely slower than he used to be (and was never “sharp” in the first place – he lies far too much to be believable in any scenario), but, in his example, he was incompetent to do the job to start with.
I’ve used the concept before, but how many hours has Joe Biden simply sat, bored as all get-out and simply wiled away his days mindlessly chatting about irrelevant stuff or tried desperately to digest massive amounts of information on a thousand different topics? Does Biden strike you as the type who could read for an entire workday and not miss a word, sentence or a paragraph?
You heard it here: serving in Congress makes dumb people dumber and smart people, well, less smart – unless they relentlessly push to produce something groundbreaking and battle the status quo. Democrats in particular embody this “dumb and dumber” notion, since they’re for anything that makes government bigger – and appropriating money is the easiest thing in the world to do.
And Joe was good at it. Simply put, the Washington swamp made Joe dull, primarily because he’s never been challenged to markedly depart from his daily predetermined routine. If he asked for anything, his staff would produce it. He’s run campaigns, but it’s mostly just appearing at fundraisers, making speeches (probably often plagiarized), traveling on pre-arranged flight manifests, vacationed at destinations chosen for him, meals planned for him… heck, even his wardrobe was probably selected by someone else.
Contrast this reality with Donald Trump, who’s lived a lifetime being constantly tested on a plethora of different subjects at practically moment-to-moment. Trump has bought land, built buildings, dealt with labor contracts, being sued, handling the media, juggled his private life (admittedly, a little shaky here), gone from place to place talking to different people, meeting world leaders on diverse subject matter, delivered countless thousands of interviews, etc.
Yes, Trump’s brain has been persistently in motion. Has senile Joe’s? Have you ever been to a committee hearing? There are the fiery moments we see on the evening news where some congressman or senator (if we’re lucky, it’s Senator Ted Cruz or Senator John Kennedy) questions a witness testifying on a piece of legislation or an administration nominee. Basically, one guy or gal talks to one guy or gal at a time while everyone else in the room (maybe) listens and waits patiently (or battles drowsiness) for his or her turn to speak.
Joe Biden sat in the senate for 36 years, occupying the allegedly most productive period of his adulthood. He was sworn into the senate shortly after his 30th birthday and didn’t leave until he’d reached the age of 66, forced to change jobs when most people are either retired or preparing to do so. At that time, he moved over to the executive branch where he assumed the position of vice president, which, though more important these days, isn’t renowned for its pressure and challenge either.
Therefore, senile Joe’s brain isn’t necessarily too old – it’s too unstimulated. Only after leaving the vice presidency did Joe delve into more invigorating activities, and those were mostly because of his involvement with son Hunter Biden’s foreign businesses.
The boxes of classified material in senile Joe’s garage visually demonstrated that he doesn’t have – and probably never did – a firm grasp of what’s going on around him. After leaving the Obama White House, what did Biden do? Whatever it was, it probably didn’t involve an abundance of high-level thinking and cognitive movement. Dull Joe just got duller.
Not even the 2020 campaign wrested Biden from his boring daily existence. His Democrat primary debate performances certainly exposed a man who hadn’t been challenged his whole life. He simply had to memorize a few lines on each political topic and look semi-coherent reciting them (which he didn’t, but that’s another story). Then, when the nomination was all-but gifted to him by establishment Democrats, his handlers used COVID as an excuse to have him tucked away in his basement rather than requiring him to lead a traditional campaign.
As would be expected, there are a number of swamp creatures from both parties who could lend credence to a similar “it was the swamp” brain-dulling career. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, for example, nearly as dense and obtuse as Biden himself, has been in public political employment for roughly the same amount of time as senile Joe, though Mitch has “only” been in the senate since January of 1985. (Note: Nearly 82-year-old (his birthday is tomorrow!) McConnell first came to Washington in 1974, serving as a Deputy United States Assistant Attorney General under President Gerald Ford.)
And who could forget the late South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond, who extended his stay in the swamp’s senate chamber until after he’d celebrated his 100th birthday! I didn’t know the man personally, but I recall hearing from staffers that Thurmond was wholly unable to function in his waning months. It only makes sense, doesn’t it? Thurmond had been in the swamp for a smidgen less than half his life! That’s a heck of a lot of Washington-induced brain-dulling boredom to dim one’s wits!
Age by itself is not a disqualifier for service at high levels of the political system, but perhaps years – or decades – in Washington should be. The longer people are there, the more corrupt they become, but the thousands of hours of tedium and boredom also takes a toll on a person’s cognitive abilities. Something to think about the next time anyone says Biden – or Trump – are merely too old to be president.
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