Twice this week, Americans got an eyeful of just who is running the country: Old folks well past their prime and ready for retirement, who could drop dead any minute.
Two days ago, in the middle of a news conference, octogenarian Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky simply stopped talking.
Yesterday, nonagenarian Democrat Diane Feinstein of California forgot how to cast a vote in committee.
Along with the obvious signs that President Joe Biden is suffering dementia, the two episodes suggest that term limits are less important to the health of the Republic than age limits.
McConnell’s Blank Stare
McConnell was speaking about a Defense Department bill when he suddenly trailed off.
Said the 81-year-old senator who was elected in 1984, “After finishing the NDA, this week had been good bipartisan cooperation and a string of ….”
Then he froze stiffer than Daniel Boone’s statue in Louisville.
Aides and Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a doctor, hustled McConnell away from the podium and back to his office.
McConnell suffered a concussion and broke a rib when he fell in May.
“McConnell has appeared physically diminished since the fall, in which he also broke a rib, spent time in a rehabilitation center and was absent from the Senate for more than a month before returning,” the New York Times reported.
McConnell contracted polio as a kid, when the iron lung was a treatment for severe cases for the incurable disease. He “has always tread carefully and avoided stairs but has been noticeably more careful since his recent injuries when moving around the Senate,” the Times observed.
Still, McConnell insisted that the episode, which could have been either a petit mal seizure, or ministroke known as a transient ischemic attack, was nothing more than a little “lightheadedness.”
He even joked with President Biden, who called to make sure his fellow old-timer was OK:
Briefly addressing reporters outside his office Wednesday night, McConnell disclosed that he received a call from President Biden.
“Well, the president called to check on me, and I told him I got sandbagged,” McConnell said. This was in reference to Mr. Biden having tripped over a sandbag while on stage for a commencement ceremony last month at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.
If we are to believe McConnell and his spear carriers in the Senate, despite cracking his noggin and breaking a rib just months ago, he’s just fine.
Feinstein: Huh?
Yesterday, the dinosaur follies continued when Democrat Feinstein wandered off to LaLa Land during a vote on the Defense Appropriations bill.
When Senator Patty Murray of Washington called for the vote, Feinstein was clueless. Instead of simply saying “aye,” the 90-year-old, who returned to the Senate in a wheelchair after a bout with shingles, began yakking in favor of the bill:
I would like to support a “yes” vote on this. It provides $823 billion — that’s an increase of $26 billion for the Department of Defense, and it funds priorities submitted.
“Just say ‘Aye,”’ Murray told Feinstein, who elected in 1992 and born the year that Edwin Howard Armstrong invented FM radio.
An hirsute staff member leaned over to bring Feinstein back to Earth, then Murray again said, “just say, ‘Aye.’”
“Aye,” Feinstein said, once back on terra firma.
She acted as if he had played the wrong card in a hand of pinochle.
Biden Too
The two episodes, which depict elderly senators less suited to make public policy and more suited to play Mahjong in a nursing-home activities room, are hardly unique.
Biden, who shuffled onto this mortal coil when Eastman Kodak began selling Kodachrome color film, has shown obvious symptoms of dementia since his presidential campaign. Most recently, he was caught nibbling a toddler in Finland.
Such impulsive behavior, and Biden’s rages and false memories, show accelerating cognitive decline, which Democrats knew was a serious problem before he was nominated.
The ages of American political leaders are as follows.
President Joe Biden, 81
Donald Trump, 77
U.S. Senate
Diane Feinstein, 90
Chuck Grassley, 89
Mitch McConnell, 81
Bernie Sanders, 81
Ben Cardin, 79
Jim Risch, 80
Dick Durbin, 78
Angus King, 79
Ed Markey, 77
Richard Blumenthal, 77
Mitt Romney, 76
Peter Welsh: 76
Jeanne Shaheen, 76
Tom Carper, 76
Chuck Schumer, 72
U.S. House*
Grace F. Napolitano, 86
Eleanor Holmes Norton, 86
Harold Rogers, 85
Bill Pascrell Jr. , 86
Maxine Waters, 84
Steny H. Hoyer, 84
James E. Clyburn, 83
Nancy Pelosi, 83
Danny K. Davis, 81
John Carter, 81
Anna G. Eshoo, 80
Frederica S. Wilson, 80
Rosa DeLauro, 80
Virginia Foxx, 80
Kay Granger, 80
*Only those 80 or older are included to keep the list of geriatric House members manageable.
U.S. Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas, 74
Justice Samuel Alito, 73
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 69
Chief Justice John Roberts, 68
Justice Elean Kagan, 63
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, 58
Justice Neil Gorsuch, 55
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, 52
