These days as soon as someone says John McCain is old, Barack Obama is a black, Sarah Palin is a woman, or Joe Biden is a white American male, immediately hackles rise. They wait for the next word to see if what is said will be politically incorrect.
The reason we all get frisked at airports by random searches, not by who is most likely a terrorist bomber, is because of politically correctedness. Some of that makes sense. It's not like every dark-skinned or Muslim appearing person is a terrorist, but some of it makes no sense. The 80 year old lady goes through the turnstile is singled out for the whole tamale of a search. Was this because she looked like a terrorist or was acting suspicious? No, it's because nobody dared say who did.
I understand some of the problem with politically incorrectedness. It labels people based on old stereotypes that often weren't true even when they were thought up. How many times have you heard it said that Hispanics are lazy and trying to exploit our system for free benefits? How interesting-- is this why they do jobs nobody else will do and often a lot faster? Is it why so many people are eager to hire them even illegally? It's a stereotype that holds water like a sieve.
When stereotypes are ugly or based on ignorance, then yes, let's get politically correct, but I think it's more about being accurate in our assessment of who people are to begin.
So back to my point. John McCain is old. I am old at 65, but he is really old. Now there are people who are 72 and are still running marathons, women who still look like Sophia Loren, but there are also those who are having heart attacks, skin cancers, strokes, becoming physically more frail, and are losing their ability to think acutely. Most states begin checking you every couple of years once you get to that age to be sure you have good reflexes and your vision is still good.
When I say John McCain is old, it's because his numbers say he is but even more that his behavior labels him an old man. He doesn't move fast, he goofs up his facts (which maybe he did all along but I don't know about that), he has to take week-ends off from campaigning. Was going to suspend his campaign to go save the bailout because he didn't have the energy to both campaign and go back there? Will he have the energy, for the next four years, to be a full-time president at an age where many men are retired and out playing golf-- with a golf cart? Presidencies, which have no real vacations, wear out even young men. What will it do to a really old one?
There are many examples of people in Congress who stay there until they die, and their constituents keep voting them in even when they can barely get down to the floor for a vote. There is no upper age limit for our political leadership, as there is in many corporations; but maybe there should be as there is for determining no one can be president before they are 35.
We are free to vote in someone who is too old to do the job, but should we?
I write a lot of these days ahead of time, taking ideas as they come to me; then schedule them where they fit. Thursday, I went to Sylvia's blog and found this: What is it about age that John McCain doesn't understand? Please read it, as it is a perfect conclusion to this blog.
2 comments:
Its been very interesting reading this blog post, for me sitting here in Mumbai, India. You classify folks as old, black, woman, white etc. Which is very interesting. Here in India, really, none of this matters. We have ministers in their 80's and parliamentarians in their early 30's. When the late Indira Gandhi (who Nixon and Kissinger despised) was our PM, she was "enough"; no one said anything about woman,white,dark,...clearly, she was powerful . Its so interesting to know how literacy affects voters thinking .
(Just between you and me, I want Obama-Biden to win. Wouldnt buy a used car from Palin...:-).)
People tend to do that, Ugich and maybe they do it different ways in your country. Do they still consider caste in deciding whether someone can be in leadership? Could someone be elected say a PM if they were from the lowest classes?
You are right, however, and it should not be considered a factor and to be honest, with McCain, it wasn't for me until he chose Palin. I didn't look to see when his grandfathers died (71 and 61) because I figured he might take better care of his cholesterol and bp. But then he chose her and the likelihood was that she could be president in his term if his health was not excellent (maybe even with) and I looked more closely at him for age and what I saw made me increasingly uneasy and still does.
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