Eighty is the new 60 [View all]

[rlegro]

So here's the fallacy in all those wingnut claims that Joe Biden is incompetent because ... reasons. Maybe because he has a lifelong though low-grade speech defect and -- horrors! -- he is approaching 80 years of age. He walks stiffly! He looks like grandpa on his bike! (Does your great grandpa ride one?) He's an old man, man!

Oh, really? Well, then why is it that both symphony conductors and lifelong appointees to the U.S. Supreme Court past 80 are still regarded and often with good reason as capable, talented, and energetic? Heck, John Stevens and Oliver Wendell Holmes both turned 90 while on the Supreme Court and are considered lions of that body. And House Speaker Nancy Pelosi though in her 80s wears high heels and dances backward while dancing rings around Republicans policy-wise. If Trump wins the 2024 election he would take office again at about the same age Biden was in taking the oath, and we already know Trump's mind is a disorganized mess.

Experience matters. No one at age 80 is going to be as dynamic as they were at 30 or 40. But it's the mind that matters, and the will, and the memory. So go ahead, wingnuts, keep urging his cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Biden from office because he is in your book some kind of mental incompetent. That last is just a code word for "disagrees with me." Oh, and please note: the age limit for a president is a minimum, not a maximum -- you have to be 35, because the wise founders and their heirs realized younger men might not have sufficient knowledge and wisdom gained from adult life to be a good lawmaker, much less a chief executive. Just ask Madison Cawthorne.

But go ahead still and hound Biden from office before 2024, if you can. Then we will welcome Kamala Harris to the job. She's got another good 40 years or so in her, maybe will yet get a Supreme Court nod, but until then...!