My worry list for the Clinton candidacy for President

[merrily]

68. Yes and no. No one can predict how anyone is going to age.

And the office of POTUS is not just any job.

How someone is going to age over the next 4 to 8 years can be determined by voters only in hindsight, if at all. In hindsight, Reagan was probably in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's while he was President. In hindsight, Paul Tsongas probably should not have tried to run for President, either, but that medical info was not released in detail. We knew he had cancer, though, we knew there was a risk. We know there's a risk of a different kind with Hillary. There is no question the risk exists. Question is, to paraphrase, how lucky are we punks feeling about that risk?

Age is not dispositive. My cousin's wife unfortunately died of VERY early onset of Alzheimers at 40. (I have difficulty believing that, but that is how her doctor's diagnosed her, so who am I to disbelieve.) However, as voters, we have to go by something.

Without a crystal ball, statistical probabilities are all we can go by. And people Hillary's age are more probable to die, to have less energy, to suffer more physical illnesses, to react slower, etc. And I know of nothing that tells me Hillary is extraordinarily fit for her age, as McCain's camp claimed he was. (And "McOld" sure came in for his share of mockery on account of his age, though I don't condone mocking elders because of age in the least, even McCain.)

This is not the same as refusing to hire a job applicant for a sales or programming position just because he or she is over 65. (Not that many do hire strangers older than 65 for many jobs, anyway.) This is a job that involves the very lives of millions, if not billions, of people from which a POTUS cannot be removed very easily if shows signs that the he or she is not physically, emotionally or mentally able to perform at top capacity.

For that matter, would most Americans even know how much a POTUS was doing on his or her own? There were rumors and jokes about Reagan and he made one speech where my reaction was "huh? Did he really just say that?" (He said something like, I don't really think that I did that. But they tell me they did and I believe them.&quot But, nothing happened to him after that and I shrugged it off.

Let's assume what he said and the full import of it had seared my brain, though: What the hell could I have done about it? I didn't want Reagan running the most powerful office in the world. Even much less than that, though, I sure as hell didn't want people whom no one at all had elected running it, and they well may have been. But, that we learned only after the fact.

Just as an aside, the abillty to drink martinis and smoke cigars says zero about fitness for the Presidency or ability to perform the duties of POTUS. Neither does doing an hour of stand up when one feels up to it. Besides, little we typically we associate with the POTUS being on call 24/7 turned on whether George Burns, when he was 65, would remain as mentally sharp and physically energetic for the next 4 to 8 years.