Joe Biden has spent his life as a good public servant. Although he’s mostly known today as former President Barack Obama’s vice president, serving loyally for eight years, he was before that a respected and hard-working senator (for nearly 35 years) from the state of Delaware. He’s known as a loving husband, a doting father and grandfather.
In his early years in the Senate he lost his first wife and infant daughter in a horrendous auto accident, which left his two young sons injured and hospitalized. And after that he spent his time in Congress commuting daily by train – 90 minutes each way! – to be with his remaining family.
Eventually he earned the affectionate nickname of Amtrak Joe.
Today, his commuting days behind him, he’s much admired for his generosity of spirit, his kindnesses and warmth to people he meets. Everybody – well, nearly everybody – loves Joe Biden. Really! It’s the first thing most folks say when his name comes up. “I love Joe Biden.”
After a full, accomplished and long life, he can look back with pride at his personal and professional achievements and ahead to a well-deserved happy retirement while sharing his wisdom as a respected and beloved elder statesman.
And now he’s thinking of blowing it all up by running for president. Again.
Yes, again. It’s easy to forget that Biden ran twice before, neither time successfully. The first campaign was in 1988, when Biden gave a speech quoting the reminiscences of a British politician. Unfortunately, he indicated they were his reminiscences. Biden said it was a mistake, he just forgot. A lot more people said it was plagiarism – something a seventh-grader knows is wrong. His campaign soon ended.
The incident pretty much faded into ancient history – but it will spring to ugly life if Biden starts campaigning. And it’s not the only thing that we’ll hear about if he abandons his current pedestal and becomes just another candidate vying for the Democratic nomination. There are 16 of them as I write this.
The affectionate sobriquet Amtrak Joe will quickly give way to a revival of the less kindly one of Senator Mastercard, a reminder of how attentive, to put it kindly, he was to the needs of the credit card industry which wields enormous political – and financial – clout in tiny Delaware.
We will all be reminded of the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court nomination Senate hearings, when University of Oklahoma law professor Anita Hill was verbally lacerated by senator after senator for testifying that Thomas sexually harassed her when they worked together. The all-male, all-white senators – including Biden – were decidedly hostile to Hill, casting doubt on her stories.
Biden now wishes he could have done more to make her ordeal less painful. But he could have! He was the chairman of the committee! As this is replayed repeatedly, Biden’s current halo will be even more tarnished.
And Biden is – as he himself admitted lately – a gaffe machine.
Not to mention a hugger. A kisser, a caresser, a nuzzler, a squeezer. Some call it “handsy,” others “touchy-feely.” Especially women, but men, too, have through the years been recipients of his, um, attention. This is not an asset as we approach the third decade of the 21st century.
He says he is a “tactile” politician. He has pledged to be “more mindful and respectful of people’s personal space.” Uh huh.
Finally, frankly, Joe is old. If elected he would be 78 when inaugurated.
For comparison, about half of all presidents through history have been in their 50s when they were sworn in. Teddy Roosevelt was the youngest, 42, and nine more were under 50. Ten were 60 or over. Only one – Trump – was 70.
The last time I wrote about this – talking about Bernie Sanders, who is one year older than Biden – I got a lovely letter from someone who ever so kindly, gently, told me I was, perhaps unknowingly, guilty of ageism.
Maybe that’s true, but I stand by it. Septuagenarians can do a heck of a lot of stuff as well as younger people, but the presidency isn’t just any job.
Today’s presidency is a uniquely high-stress job with great physical and mental demands. And the dangers posed not just to the nation but to the world by an unfit president could be catastrophic — particularly since, despite the 25th Amendment, it would be near impossible politically to remove a president unless he was filmed sitting on the White House lawn and baying at the moon or he was declared to be in an irreversible coma.
I’m in Biden’s age neighborhood. I do not have the physical stamina I once did. I doubt I’m as mentally nimble as I was once, either, even if I like to think that my husband and I are sharp as a couple of tacks. Old tacks.
And I am keenly aware that the odds of our diminishing further in the coming four or even eight years are high, not just for me but for my age cohort. We see it in our families and friends.
Take just one disquieting statistic: The Alzheimer’s Society says that someone’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or vascular dementia doubles roughly every five years and that dementia affects one in 14 people over age 65 and one in six over the age of 80. Bernie would be 79 were he to be inaugurated. And Biden would be 78.
And that’s just one vicissitude of old age. Who knows what else could be lurking out there for an elderly president? Even if these things could be reliably predicted by physical and cognitive examinations — which I don’t think is true — the notion of mandating such exams for seekers of high office is repellent and un-American.
Categorically ruling out an old person is of course wrong. But taking the age of a candidate – in this case, Joe Biden – into account really should, I think, be part of the equation, especially combined with Biden’s other baggage.
Let Biden remain a respected and wise elder, for his sake and ours, while an abundance of good younger candidates, most of them far more fit in every way than the current occupant of the White House, take their turn at the political table. And we can all, still, love Joe Biden.
(“Monitor” columnist Katy Burns lives in Bow.)