Wow, is this stupid. Yet I have started seeing it all over social media, and it’s being posted by previously intelligent friends, Democrats all.
Never mind the fact that most of those on the list are not working (some have very publicly retired) unless you call sitting down for an interview every year or so or “appearing” on a podcast “working.” The main reasons this argument is idiotic are that:
1. The fact that someone else is Joe Biden age and is not senile proves nothing about Joe Biden.
2. These are all entertainers and artists. What is expected and required of entertainers and artists is completely different from what is expected and required of world leaders. There is literally no valid analogy there. None.
3. If Paul McCartney blanks while singing “Yesterday” in a concert, he stops, starts the song again, and there is no harm done. A President whose attention and alertness is absent during a crisis can make an error with terrible consequences for the whole nation, and there is no do-over.
4. The list is cherry-picked. Notable for his absence, among others: Bruce Willis, whose family stopped him from performing because of progressive dementia. Willis is 69.
The Democrats, now in “Try anything! Say anything!” panic mode even beyond what I expected before Biden’s debate collapse, are literally tossing out every deflection and rationalization they can think of, hoping to salvage the votes of as many gullible half-wits as possible. If there is any justice, this dishonest tactic (and the increasingly desperate ones to come) will lose them at least as many votes as it preserves, because they are proving how untrustworthy and Machiavellian they are.
Ethics Alarms 
“4. The list is cherry-picked. Notable for his absence, among others: Bruce Willis, whose family stopped him from performing because of progressive dementia. Willis is 69.”
When I looked at the list, my immediate thought was “Age as of 2024 and retired due to dementia (hadn’t settled on the right word, but dementia is probably not the right one): Bruce Willis-69.”
-Jut
Cue Nelson: Kieth Richards for President! Mick Jagger for Vice-president!
Who are these people? The kind of people that go to a Rolling Stones concert to see geriatric hyperactives hopping around on a stage?
Anyone who thinks the Rolling Stones shouldn’t have retired fifty years ago is nuts. What is wrong with so many baby-boomers? Why can’t they just go fishing?
My musician friend Mike Messer, who does my musical ethics seminars with me, is an aficionado of ancient musicians. He saw Buddy Holly’s band, “The Crickets,” in their final performance in 2016, and said that they could still play, and it was amazing.
The fact old rock and pop musicians can still play irrelevant and ridiculous in rock and pop. Classical and jazz are different. Rock and Roll and Pop are for young people. Geriatrics on stage performing rock and roll and pop are ridiculous. Exhibit A: Madonna. You’re supposed to grow into more mature music as you grow up. Get out of the fucking garage and stop pretending you’re still twenty-five.
You’re conflating the performance with the art. I saw Marlene Dietrich in her Sixties. She could no longer pull off her sexy act, but she could still make a song work and do it her own inimitable way. If a pop or rock artist can do that, they should keep performing. When they are gone, they’re gone. I would have paid to see Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis as long as they could rock out. It’s like an old athlete: if they still have the spark of greatness, they should keep sharing it.
Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, James Brown and perhaps Dietrich were exceptions to the rule. There are others. I saw Randy Newman in Amsterdam at the Concertgebouw. Stumbled onto the last ticket online and wandered over. He can still play and sing but he should hang it up. He’s old. And by the way, one of his new songs slammed rockers who are still touring thanks to casinos. Key line put in the mouth of one such rocker by Randy: “I’ve got nothin’ to say, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” We can listen to these people’s recordings done in their primes.
And in rock and pop, performance and the art are one and the same. Singing “Brown Sugar” isn’t like performing lieder standing next to a piano.
The difference between Clint Eastwood’s performances between Gran Torino and The Mule are stark and sobering. I’ve not seen what he’s done after Mule, but my expectations are now much lower.
He could play his age. I thought Clint was fine in “The Mule.”
Yeah, other than the threesomes he acted his age.
The film felt shallow, the tension was sparse, none of the characters likable, almost no humor.
Expectations were probably also high from the dark comedy Australian Mule with Hugo Weaving. It had much better tension, characters, plot, and the green criminal hero vs. bad cop villain dynamic was much more compelling.
Then there were the “Clarence the Talking Mule” movies with Donald O’Connor and Chill Wills as the mule.
Some of these are a joke. Buzz Aldrin hasn’t been an astronaut in decades. Gene Hackman is 100% retired. Mick Jagger is still performing but looks like the walking dead. Chuck Norris is and always has been in incredible shape. Biden is in terrible shape. Most importantly, none of these folks have issues with dementia or are at the physical point where they should be on a rocking chair drooling. Anyone who uses this as support for the Dementia Patient in Chief to keep going is an idiot.
Democrats cannot tackle an issue head-on to save their lives. It is always obfuscating, conflating, and spinning on a topic. (This is not meant to say anything about Republican proclivities toward the same. I will hold Republicans have different dishonest tactics.) The problem isn’t Biden’s age in and of itself. The problem is Biden’s mental decline. If he were 36 and showed this level of mental decline, it would prove he was unfit. But can the Democrats admit that the issue isn’t that Biden is too old? No! They shy away from the real issue, and make the topic about Biden’s numerical age, not his actual health, acuity, and ability to convey what thoughts he actually has.
What cracks me up is that if you point out Biden’s age, you’re ageist. If you point out his mental health, you’re ableist. If you point out his record as a president, you’re one of racist sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, white supremecist, white nationalist, islamophobic, and several others that are escaping my mind at the moment.
Slightly off topic, I think I have reached a tipping point, prompted a bit by an article from Duke that was decrying how expecting people to show up on time to class or work is white supremecist, derived from that evil of evils, capitalism. It seems to me in the Democratic propensity towards conflating ideas, masking realities with egregiously benign or egregiously negative terms, that what Democrats mean anymore by “white supremecist” is “what works to make you successful.” In that context, I think I will claim that I am such a person. Do with that what you will. Thoughts?
If income equality is the goal, Ryan, everyone has to be poor. It’s communism. (And please note, as used above, “everyone” does not include the guys in charge. See, eg., Fidel Castro, or hell, Bernie Sanders!)
Ryan, there’s a major strain of anarchism and anti-authoritarianism in the left. Chaos is a major part of the goal. Prof. Turley has a nice piece out discussing the anarchist and Marxist roots of antifa.
Antifa Radicals Elected to the French and European Parliaments – JONATHAN TURLEY
I’ve never understood anarchism. No system is the system? But it’s definitely a thing that appeals to certain crazy people.
Monty Python is going to need to update the Parrot Sketch to incorporate all these new ideas.
“E’s not dead, why I had a tortoise once lived to be 105 years old!“
Does anyone know the over/under on how many more days before the Dems call a halt to this insanity and force Joe to announce he is withdrawing from the race? What’s the line, “If something can’t go on forever, it has to end?” This situation is more ridiculous than the Lewinsky affair.
C’mon OB, you know the Dems cannot “force” Joe to announce he is withdrawing. Maybe they could persuade him to resign but I doubt it. The 25th isn’t any good either because I doubt the VP and cabinet would put it in motion let alone get a 2/3 vote from both chambers of Congress (based on the Republicans wanting him to run and lose).
But, if there were an over / under I’d have to say they would set it at 12 days and I’d pick under.
I’m beginning to think the Dems are somewhere on the five stages of grief scale. I think denial is stage one, right? That’s clearly what’s going on in the list above that Jack talks about. But I think there may be some movement onto the next stage. Check this out from Richie Torres, the squad member from the Bronx (how many congressional districts are there in the Bronx?):
“What matters is not how we feel but what the numbers tell us,” he said. “An unsentimental analysis of the cold hard numbers — which have no personal feelings or political loyalties — should inform what we decide and whom we nominate.”
So, I think the Jim Clyburn brigade is beginning to shed members who are calling the CBC backing Biden a political suicide mission. I think there’s some movement.
Also, I don’t think the Bidens have the power to hang on. How hard would it be to have a special counsel suddenly be appointed to investigate all the Biden bribery? They could even do a snap impeachment. I bet they could have an indictment in a day. I bet someone at the DOJ has already been tasked with drafting one. They could move to have Hunter report to jail. I can just see Chuck Schumer saying, “Be careful Biden, I’m warning you, you will reap the whirlwind.”
“An unsentimental analysis of the cold hard numbers — which have no personal feelings or political loyalties — should inform what we decide and whom we nominate.”
I think Barry Goldwater would be to differ.
Or, for that matter, I think Reagan would not have subscribed to that view necessarily. How many folks really thought he’d be able to beat Carter?
And, later on, when he proposed SDI, as much as he supported it on its merits, the whole concept of Mutually Assured Destruction was morally and ethically repugnant to him — to his great credit.
And, continuing on, after Bush was reelected he made the decision to spend his political capital trying to reform Social Security — even though he had to have known the odds were against him, and he did not prevail. I still believe that that was one of our last, best chances at a decent immigration reform had Bush chosen that instead of Social Security (and coming from Texas he had to know what the border was like).
On the flip side of those examples was this year’s real chance again at immigration reform, endorsed belatedly by Biden but torpedoed by Trump.
You know, one of the GOP arguments against that bill was that even though it included provisions that could have been used to curb illegal immigration Biden would never have done so.
That may or may not have proven to be true (it’s more likely than not, I think), but if Biden never acted immigration would not only still be a great issue for Trump, but he would have these new statutory tools to use when he took office.
*sigh*
3 districts in the Bronx, for the record. And yes, there’s a limit to how far even the most progressive politicians will go with someone who is clearly going to lose. That said, the Dems made their bed, now they must lie in it.
I heard a comedian that made me laugh. He said all you have to do is get the 4 or 5 people around him to work with you. That whenever Joe mentions winning his second term, they just look at him and say “but Joe, this IS your second term.” Boom. He’ll be out stumping for Harris in no time.
The scary thing is, from what I’ve seen, I give it an 85% chance of working.
When is the Republican National Convention? I’ll give President Biden until then. If the Democrats replace President Biden, they’re going to want to do it such that debates with President Trump are impossible to schedule. The DNC is also going to want to give as little time as possible for their choice to come under scrutiny.
They also have a huge issue dealing with states whose ballot deadlines have already passed.
It’s a delicious mess in which Democrats find themselves, and an ironic one, since they expended tremendous capital and pulled every ethical and legal string possible to put Republicans in this EXACT position with President Trump.
But they also have the added benefit of getting a LOT more help getting around the rules than Republicans would get if they were in the same boat.
Joel— Even money that all possible replacements are currently the subject of deep dives into their pasts. The Repubs will not wait to see who gets nominated, they will be ready with ads the moment the decision is made. And those subjects are probably busy erasing posts and preparing excuses for those they cannot bury….
“Something that can’t go on forever, won’t.” Economist Herbert Stein, Ben’s father.
Thank you.
“Anyone? Anyone? Beuhler?”
I’ve come to look at it as a tell. The people who are encouraging Joe to stay in the race either donated to him, he owes them favors, or they’re currently running the country for him. Which would include most the bureaucratic department – they’re all running the country just fine without any interference from the president, thank you. The last thing any of them want is to lose the guy that owes them, or to lose their meal ticket.
Also of note – observe how many people are complaining about the risk joe means to the DNC or the election. No mention of the country at all.
And not, have the matching orders gone out about mentioning project 2025 as often and as frighteningly as they can.
Just because there are some people on the far edge of the bell curve who can work until extreme age doesn’t mean the average person can. Also, even those who do work to extreme age weren’t working at 80 like they worked at 30. Linus Pauling worked until he was 93. However, if you look at his publication history, it isn’t like he was churning out new discoveries like he did in the 1920’s, 1930’s, 1940’s, or 1950’s. In the late 1980’s and 1990’s you see a change from journal articles on new research to reflection essays about his life and the history of science he made and/or lived through (Reflections on William Lawrence Bragg, for instance). So, not retired, but not publishing much new research. He was the director of the Linus Pauling Institute, so much of the new research in his later years may been mostly other people who consulted with him.
Presidents need to be at the top of their game, not aging heroes writing their memoirs for posterity.
I believe that if you look at some of the great scientists like Pauling, Einstein and the like — they tended to do a lot of their landmark, greatest work when they were young and tapered off as they grew older.
It actually makes sense — when you are a youngster, just starting out, you don’t necessarily know that some things are impossible so you do them anyway. If you wait until you’re settled into your career, you may have absorbed what can and cannot be accomplished.
This is actually my idea of how the US became a great scientific power. They have found that people are their most creative before the age of 35. Most great scientific discoveries were done by people under 35. In Europe, they had a strict hierarchical system at the universities (they, and most other countries, still do). A full professor supervised the assistant professors. Associate professors were given some freedom to explore their own ideas. So, the creative people were stifled by the oldest faculty. In the US, we liked the titles, but not the hierarchy. We made all the faculty independent, freeing the assistant professors to be creative. Harvard took advantage of this by hiring the best postdocs in the country, luring them with the promise of tenure, then dumping them at ~35 for another talented young postdoc just to milk the creativity bandwagon. Harvard had a professorship that wasn’t granted tenure for over 20 years. Three faculty in a row were denied tenure after stellar publication histories. Rice University figured this out and started hiring those people after they were denied tenure.
“All bad things start at Harvard” was a saying at Michigan.
…and speaking of people who are questionably fit to serve…
At least one member is trying to hedge against a possible Donald Trump victory in November: Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez filed articles of impeachment against SCOTUS justices Thomas and Alito. I’m not sure how well that’s going to play out.
I don’t know about Alito, but Thomas’ conflicts of interest are deep enough that he should go. If Trump wins in November, a retirement from him would be gladly accepted.
In the GOP dominated House it’s not going anywhere. Sandy needs to quit grandstanding.
When I looked at that list of names, my initial reaction was more on the order of: I thought that guy was dead, or good to know she hasn’t passed away just yet. I’m especially thinking of Carol Burnett, for heavens sake, and Bob Newhart and Julie Andrews. Good for them!
But they aren’t president of the United States.
Although they could be nominated in an open convention if the alternative was Kamala Harris.
Bad! Bad!
But…also true.
Galapagos tortoise , 170+ and still working.