After President Biden was described last week as “an elderly man with a poor memory”, many of the world’s media questioned his fitness for a second term at the age of 81. As one old man to another, I have some advice: Don’t do it, Joe.
I am almost the age at which Biden commences his first presidential term. Even if I had the political experience and the opportunity, I would not contemplate taking on the job. Nor had any other American politician before him at that age.
Based on what my own body tells me, and on what I see around me, the prospect of anyone presiding over the most powerful nation of Earth until he is 86 fills me with dread.
It is the same sort of dread I feel at the prospect of the post being held by a septuagenarian lunatic who thinks the way to increase NATO defence spending is to invite Russia to invade some of its member states.
Both Biden and Trump stand between Shakespeare’s sixth and seventh ages of man – that is, between old age and dotage & death. So do I. It is our common occupancy that protects me from accusations of ageism. I cannot be prejudiced against my own class, and I can speak from a position of knowledge. I will be 77 next month and, much as I might wish, I can make no claim to being merely middle aged or in the prime of life. The first five stages of life that the Bard set out in As Your Like It are only memories.
I, and my friends and associates, recognise the effects of the aging process. It doesn’t mean we are senile or crippled (give or take an arthritic finger or three and the effect on typing skills). We still have our cognitive abilities and, sometimes with the aid of prosthetic joints, we’re still mobile.
But age inevitably catches up with us.
We continue to make rational decisions, but we may take a little longer to reach them than we once did. Eventually we remember the name of that person from our past, but the emphasis is on ‘eventually’. We continue to work at meaningful tasks but, after a full day of endeavour, we receive a clear message that it is time to rest aching limbs and brimming brains. We can still multi-task, but ‘multi’ does not have quite the numerical power it did in our heyday.
Last week Special Counsel Robert Hur released his unvarnished opinion that natural impairments related to age were behind Mr Biden’s mishandling of classified documents and he should not therefore face trial.
Journalists rightly interrogated the president’s fitness to serve a second term. Interestingly, there was little media questioning of his fitness to complete his current term.
Biden’s age has been an issue simmering in the background since he announced his candidacy before his first term. Former incumbent Jimmy Carter told the New York Times in 2019 that he did not believe that, if he was 80, he could undertake the duties he experienced when he was president.”
When Biden joined the ranks of the octogenarians last year, White House correspondents questioned whether he would be too old for re-election. Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre responded: “80 is the new 40, didn’t you hear?” Photographs of President Biden on a bicycle – splendid in lyra and racing helmet – could not dispel the widespread belief that the spin doctor’s one-liner was not even remotely close to the truth.
Now, however, journalists are making something much more significant than milestone enquiries.
A single paragraph in the executive summary of Robert Hur’s report to the US Attorney General presented the Press Corps with material evidence that Biden’s quest for a second term was questionable.
“We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of wilfulness.”
Hur’s report referred to episodes with a ghost writer six or seven years ago in which Biden’s responses to questions were “often painfully slow, with Mr Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries”. On two occasions, Biden could not remember the dates he was vice-president.
If the statement wasn’t enough, President Biden’s highly emotional reaction added fuel to the flames. And in a heated press conference he confused the presidents of Mexico and Egypt.
Some of the resulting coverage has descended into partisan rhetoric, with outlets such as Fox News approaching the story with undisguised glee as they champion Donald Trump’s bid to return to the White House. Media at the other end of the spectrum have now seized on Trump’s extraordinary utterances about NATO to deflect attention from President Biden’s age.
The issue will not go away.
Helen Lewis, writing in The Atlantic, said: “Joe Biden is turning into a statue of Joe Biden.” The BBC quoted Chris Borick, the director of the Muhlenberg College Institute of Public Opinion as saying that consistent polling showed Biden’s greatest liability was that voters think he’s simply too old to run. Meanwhile, Mini Racker, in Time charted a middle course by bringing Trump into the mix, but the result was no less concerning: “With the oldest presidential matchup in American history upon us, issues of health and competency are likely to come up again and again over the next nine months. And both campaigns will be working to make their opponent seem doddy, senile, and infirm, and their own guy the picture of vim and vigour.”
The New York Times in an editorial accused Biden’s media team of a careful crafted campaign to hide the president’s frailties.
“[There is] a concerted, modern White House strategy to reach Americans through online influencers or tightly produced videos, rather than public encounters that might challenge him. But the combination of Mr. Biden’s age and his absence from the public stage has eroded the public’s confidence. He looks as if he is hiding, or worse, being hidden. The details in Mr. Hur’s report will only heighten those concerns, which Mr. Trump’s campaign is already exploiting. This is a dark moment for Mr. Biden’s presidency, when many voters are relying on him to provide the country with a compelling alternative to the unique danger of Mr. Trump… He needs to do more to show the public that he is fully capable of holding office until age 86.
The Wall Street Journal in its editorial put Biden’s age in a chilling international context.
“This is dangerous politically for Democrats, but it’s also a grave risk for the country. The world is as dangerous as it’s been since the 1930s, with U.S. adversaries on the march. This would be challenging for a young, vigorous leader. It’s perilous for a President who will be 82 years old before a second inauguration and who is already showing visible signs of failing memory and lapsed concentration.”
Joe Biden is already the oldest president in US history. If he sees out another term he will surpass Britain’s oldest Prime Minister, William Gladstone, who was 84 when he resigned. New Zealand’s oldest prime minister was Walter Nash who was in office to the age of 78.
And I suspect the debate in America will be reflected here and elsewhere.
Before the last New Zealand general election, Tim Murphy wrote on Newsroom about Winston Peters re-entering the race at the age of 78. He did not question Peters’ ability to undertake another term in Parliament, stating that the veteran politician was ‘resilient’. Murphy described Peters during the 2023 campaign as “focused (while maintaining hispermanent stance of wilful opaqueness), and clasping his hands tightly for composure at the podium while timinghis debate interventions and practised ripostes.”
Now, however, Mr Peters may now be the victim of some Biden fallout. The Foreign Minister’s confusion over the name of his travelling companion Shane Reti on his recent Pacific odyssey may see him being forced to deliver irritated reactions to reporters’ questions over whether age might be catching up with him, too.
Murphy’s piece ended by repeating a quote from former Act leader Richard Prebble, who had written the following in the New Zealand Herald.
“Old men are a tribe which is much misunderstood (and for which I have considerable affection) but being theleader of a political party or the nation is not a job for an old man. Old fellows should stick to giving sageadvice.”
There is much on which Mr Prebble and I might disagree, but we are as one on that matter. I wish to God Joe Biden would get the message.
From Jim Tucker: As another member of the same tribe (also aged 77, this week) I readily agree with your lament. Let us old men (and women, surely) give our sage advice, but also restrain us from thinking we can rule anything greater than our own realms. Even those are a problem, at times.
Frankly, Gavin, I’d much prefer you as president of the US of A to either of the candidates. It’s a woeful choice. Were Biden to choose Michelle Obama as his running mate, maybe he’d have a chance, as the voters will have factored in that if he wins, he’ll most likely die in office. And the current VP just doesn’t cut it.