I will not be sad if Barack Obama is elected President in the fall; indeed, I will be delighted beyond measure. Of all the possible Presidents who could disappoint me, he’s the one I’d most like to do it.
And John McCain is shaping up just now to be a poor candidate, who seems mainly to favor more, longer wars for reasons even he cannot quite explain. I hope very much that Obama supporters will continue to make the case that he is ill informed, corrupt, and temperamentally, characterologically, and intellectually unsuited for the presidency.
But it diminishes liberals, progressives, and Democrats—the party, let us not forget, of Social Security—to mock McCain simply for being old or for acting as old people do or enjoying the things old people enjoy. I feel guilty, and I know my fellow progressives and liberals do, for doing and allowing this. Ageist attacks hurt not just the elderly at whom they’re directed, but all the superannuated among us.
66 comments
June 6, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Vance Maverick
Near the top on Things Younger than McCain, there’s a link to this, which suggests at least that there’s some self-awareness swirled into the, uh, juvenility.
June 6, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Fontana Labs
C’mon, admit the “change” pun is great.
June 6, 2008 at 2:16 pm
andrew
Huh. I used to associate golf with age, but now I associate it, when I don’t think about it as a professional sport, more with a particular set of tastes related to business/the professions.
June 6, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Ben Alpers
I agree that making fun of McCain for his age ought to be beneath us.
However, the Jon Swift piece you linked to above is as much about making fun of the notion that McCain is a change agent. And that seems very much fair game to me.*
I also think that there are legitimate (though in part age-related) questions about McCain’s health that deserve to be asked.**
________________
* Just as I think we can ask questions about how much of a change agent Obama will be given the large number of old Washington hands he has advising him.
** Just as I think it’s legitimate to be concerned about Obama’s smoking.
June 6, 2008 at 2:21 pm
Fontana Labs
I suppose someone should make the point that whether adhering to social norms is noble or a fool’s game depends on how many other people are adhering to those norms. It’s not like McCain’s campaign has restricted itself to fair shots, etc.
June 6, 2008 at 2:28 pm
eric
I forgot to put a link to Standpipe Bridgeplate’s blog.
June 6, 2008 at 2:29 pm
Fontana Labs
Christ, did I just get trolled? [so many expletives]
June 6, 2008 at 2:33 pm
andrew
Standpipe is making fun of McCain’s age. I’m going to have to stop reading that blog.
June 6, 2008 at 2:39 pm
ari
You people are really worried about ageist attacks on McCain? Wow. Just…wow. Well, at least this thread, even in its infancy, proves how right I was the other day. I’m not sure, but I don’t think that was Eric’s intent. Sweet, sweet vindication is mine!
June 6, 2008 at 2:43 pm
eric
No, it proves the complete opposite. You were immensely wrong, and you must never forget it. I really have to explain everything to you, don’t I?
June 6, 2008 at 2:45 pm
ari
Yeah, that’s what I thought, not exactly his intent. Thanks, boys.
June 6, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Vance Maverick
Too subtle for me. Especially the reference to Ari’s having been right.
June 6, 2008 at 2:49 pm
eric
JFTR, I’m not even sure what we’re disagreeing about, but I’m confident Ari’s wrong.
June 6, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Cala
I liked the thingsolderthan.. blog because it was a neat walk through history and inventions and pop culture, and plus, ‘McCain is older than Barack Obama’s dead parents’ is some funny stuff.
June 6, 2008 at 2:50 pm
eric
Ah, I just clicked Vance’s link. Excellent.
June 6, 2008 at 2:51 pm
eric
the Jon Swift piece you linked to above is as much about making fun of the notion that McCain is a change agent.
You cannot be serious. Counting your change? New math? Early bird special? Yes, not at all ageist.
Seriously, it’s ageist. I’m not linking to Standpipe’s blog right now.
June 6, 2008 at 2:52 pm
andrew
I’m completely serious about not reading Standpipe’s blog. The rest of this thread has me confused. Except about Ari being wrong.
June 6, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Levi Stahl
Where I think it’s totally legitimate to bring up McCain’s age is in regards to how the times he’s lived through have shaped his experience of the world. Hell, he draws on that himself to make the opposite point of what I’d make: he argues that he’s seen it all; I argue that he’s locked into a worldview built in a different era.
June 6, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Cala
BUILT BEFORE UNIONS BEFORE THERE WERE CARS IN A DIFFERENT ERA.
June 6, 2008 at 2:54 pm
eric
God help me, I believe Ari has turned me into Alan Sokal.
June 6, 2008 at 2:55 pm
eric
it’s totally legitimate to bring up McCain’s age … in regards to how the times he’s lived through have shaped his experience of the world
How is this different from bringing up Obama’s race?
June 6, 2008 at 3:01 pm
andrew
The funny thing is that it would be totally legitimate to bring up a candidate’s age if that candidate were under 35. Ageism has been constitutionally enshrined!
(I took a “class” in college – it was really a speaker series – where one of the speakers had run for mayor of a small college town while still a college student. When it was pointed out that he was not old enough to be eligible for the mayoralty, he said, he replied: “If I am elected, that’s the first law I’ll change.”)
June 6, 2008 at 3:01 pm
ari
I think, at this point, that it’s legitimate — if not our moral duty — to consider closing down the blog. We’re simply too ageist and sexist to carry on another day.
June 6, 2008 at 3:07 pm
ac
Not to mention canine-centric.
June 6, 2008 at 3:10 pm
ari
Wait, I have a cat! But I can’t blog about him.
June 6, 2008 at 3:10 pm
eric
Bigot.
June 6, 2008 at 3:11 pm
andrew
Make him a co-blogger and he can do it himself.
June 6, 2008 at 3:13 pm
matt w
Since I have completely lost track of who is joking when, the following comment will be humorless and can be taken to stand alone:
It is not wrong to make fun of golf gear, because golf is stereotypically a sport of the rich and powerful (as andrew obliquely points out), and also often played at clubs that are segregated by race and sex, or almost so.
June 6, 2008 at 3:16 pm
eric
golf is stereotypically a sport of the rich
Richist.
June 6, 2008 at 3:21 pm
matt w
Sadly, that’s not a joke.
June 6, 2008 at 3:34 pm
d
You have to admit it’s odd that McCain is older than nachos. Though I think that speaks poorly of our ancestors as much as anything. Really. Its a pile of goddamn chips with tasty goo thrown on top. And we invented dynamite before getting around to that?
June 6, 2008 at 3:35 pm
eric
On the other hand, someone long ago looked at a lobster and said hmm, that’s probably tasty. Food is a mystery.
June 6, 2008 at 3:39 pm
ari
Dude, don’t scare away the folks from Fafblog.
June 6, 2008 at 3:39 pm
d
You wonder what else they had to eat before getting around to that…
I suppose the answer to that is “damn near everything.”
June 6, 2008 at 3:42 pm
eric
You know, I don’t think the Medium Lobster has posted since Fafblog came back. I hope John McCain didn’t eat it for the Early Bird Special.
June 6, 2008 at 3:50 pm
ari
David Hacket Fischer, who comes up here more often than I’d like, wrote about lobster in Albion’s Seed. What he wrote about lobster escapes me at the moment. But I’ll try to paraphrase from memory: “The foodways of the colonial New England region were complex, though they could be traced, predictably, back to the districts of England from which the colonists had sailed. Also, those people ate sea bugs. Hugeass insects pulled from the ocean. Which is gross.”
June 6, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Cala
God bless d.
June 6, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Ben Alpers
It’s one in the morning here, so I’m going to bed.
When I wake up, I hope to find a clear explanation of whether it was, in fact, Ari or Eric who was wrong.
And if you get bored with this thread, you can always go over to the Great Orange Satan, where at one point yesterday there were two separate diaries on the rec list seriously urging people not to make
fun of the color of McCain’s teeth. I’m not making this up, you know.
June 6, 2008 at 4:18 pm
eric
whether it was, in fact, Ari or Eric who was wrong.
Ari is always already wrong! Double infinity no takebacks!
June 6, 2008 at 4:20 pm
urbino
Just as I think it’s legitimate to be concerned about Obama’s smoking.
It’s crossed my mind, lately, that smoking may actually work for him in this campaign. What better way to get Appalachian coalminers to accept you than to stand around and have a butt with them?
And no, I’m not kidding.
John McCain, OTOH, is too old to smoke.
June 6, 2008 at 4:24 pm
ari
Urbino said “butt.” Heh, heh.
June 6, 2008 at 4:28 pm
d
I thought Obama quit. If he didn’t, I’m going to start. Because I think it’s important to support the president, even before he’s the president.
June 6, 2008 at 4:35 pm
urbino
Last I heard, he still gets in trouble with the missus for sneaking one, now and again.
Which would endear him still further to the coalminers.
June 6, 2008 at 4:42 pm
ari
Because they have black lung in common? Now I’m confused.
June 6, 2008 at 4:43 pm
Eddie
I want to chime in on the golf thing. I work for a public school system, and most of the major financial decisions are made out on the golf course. I’m not kidding. If you don’t play golf, you’re not part of the “inner group” and are always out of the loop.
June 6, 2008 at 4:44 pm
urbino
You’re saying black men can’t have lungs?
June 6, 2008 at 4:49 pm
andrew
Slogan: “Dirty teeth, clean coal.”
June 6, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Adam
Albion’s Seed is still sitting on my floor. That’s a long damn book.
Another David — Foster Wallace — also wrote about lobster in the appropriately-named “Consider the Lobster,” which coincidentally has an essay in it about McCain’s 2000 primary campaign (called “Up, Simba!” for some reason).
Apparently, lobster used to be considered cruel and unusual punishment to feed prisoners and was shipped to railroad workers as cheap canned protein. Lobsters were an infestation in New England waters. Now that they’re no longer so overpopulated and are generally eaten fresh, they’ve become a delicacy.
There’s also a long meditation in the essay on the morality of cooking a lobster and listening to it rattle around in the pot as the temperature of the water slowly rises, but I’d rather not think about that, since it’s freaky and I don’t eat lobster anyway.
June 6, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Adam
And what’s wrong with David Hackett Fischer? Washington’s Crossing is a good book.
June 6, 2008 at 4:53 pm
andrew
John Hodgman has a section on lobsters in his Expertise book (or at least in the audio version).
June 6, 2008 at 4:58 pm
urbino
Graham Swift has a long meditation on eels in Waterland.
This is of dubious relevance.
June 6, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Vance Maverick
Isn’t the canonical saying (attributed in its variants to Swift, Johnson, etc.), “It was a brave man that first ate an oyster”? I believe I ran across this first in MFK Fisher — possibly in Consider the Oyster, surely the source for Wallace’s title.
June 6, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Levi Stahl
Eric,
You may have me: maybe bringing up McCain’s age in the context of the era that formed him is no better than making a similar argument about Obama based around race. But let me take a crack at it here and see if it still comes across as inappropriate:
Is that inappropriate? I guess I’m not sure now–perhaps it would be just as effective an argument without specific reference to his age, which would thereby render the reference to his age a de facto cheap shot?
June 6, 2008 at 5:29 pm
ari
Oh Levi, don’t let him bait you. You’re just playing his game. Tell him he’s a sexist pig, and be done with it. That’s what the rest of us do. Either that or make him eat one of those olde timey lobsters Adam’s talking about. That’ll teach ‘im.
June 6, 2008 at 5:33 pm
urbino
olde timey lobsters
Ageist.
June 6, 2008 at 6:44 pm
kenmeer livermaile
Advanced age means that many of your biosystems are failing. This often includes brain function. One needn’t have Alzheimer’s to be a bit daft.
There IS this thing called wisdom, it’s true, that age bestows most abundantly, but it usually manifests in being wise enough to realize one isn’t all that smart.
Obama, at forty-ish, in the peak of his game, is wiser than McCain when it comes to this.
It ain’t ageism to call an old fart an old fart. Any honest old fart will refer to himself as such regularly. Also, any honest old fart has more sense than to run for the presidency.
June 6, 2008 at 9:48 pm
Adam
I still want to know what’s wrong with David Hackett Fischer! I mean, aside from the fact that my attention span isn’t up to trudging through Albion’s Seed.
June 6, 2008 at 9:53 pm
ari
Oh, he’s fine, a very good historian even, though reputed to be, um, eccentric. Albion’s Seed, if memory serves, is a pretty odd book, amazing in some respects (the research, especially), but crudely reductive. So says the guy who hasn’t read it since grad school and couldn’t find it on his shelf today. Which annoyed me to no end. I just hate that.
How’s your work going?
June 6, 2008 at 11:30 pm
Adam
My work on Albion’s Seed? It’s not. I’m reading Ellis’ His Excellency instead, because it’s, uh, shorter. That, in turn, is because my “actual” work is, let’s see:
(a) redlining and turning around 10 different co-location and transport contracts,
(b) filling out an entire 1023 filing for charity status and getting it in to the IRS before the contracts
(c) designing a VoIP / data network, doing ordering, scheduling setup, insurance for the network engineers and getting them cleared, hey wait! I’m not a network tech!
“… Oh, but everyone else is either in New York on a job or taking a vacation in the Caribbean. Guess it’s time to brush up on my server-racking! Wish I was getting paid for this.”
Yeah, books would be nice. Actually, I should be asleep.
June 6, 2008 at 11:40 pm
urbino
DHF’s writing is also, in my experience, damn dull.
June 6, 2008 at 11:49 pm
ari
Oops, you’re not the Adam I thought you were. I say again, oops. And good luck with the to-do list. That sounds a bit grim. Also, yes, Urbino, he’s pretty dull, though Washington’s Crossing clips along at a decent enough pace.
June 7, 2008 at 12:11 am
urbino
Haven’t read that one. Just AS, a bit of the one about corn prices, and had Historians’ Fallacies inflicted on me as a textbook.
June 7, 2008 at 12:16 am
Adam
Washington’s Crossing is a really fun book, actually.
June 7, 2008 at 12:19 am
Adam
…And I half-suspected you were referring to another Adam, but I kind of wanted to complain about the work anyway, so I figured I’d take the opportunity… I have low standards for griping about this one
June 7, 2008 at 5:45 am
John
The golf gear thing is funny because there’s four tabs on his website, one of which is for “golf gear,” which is apparently as important as “strategy,” “decision center,” and “general election.” It has nothing in particular to do with him being old. Nobody cares if he likes golf. What’s funny is that golf seems to have a bizarre prominence on his website.
June 11, 2008 at 12:40 pm
John McCain is trolling America, right? « The Edge of the American West
[…] be done with it. Also, he could accept ads from Centrum Silver and Sunsweet prune juice. Oh wait, we’re not supposed to make fun of McCain’s age. Well, in that case, let me just say that while I would never allow a candidate’s advanced […]