I nod my head approvingly gravely while casting admiring censorious glances in the direction of writers from Politico, who’ve found so many clever appalling ways to call The Maverick old — and perhaps addled. How dare these journalists leftist propagandists refer so decorously “to the sensitive issue of McCain’s advanced age” in the context of a rather more muted than I would have liked deeply unfair essay hit piece detailing his recent egregious gaffe’s minor slips of the tongue: Czechoslovakia, the Steelers, the Iraq-Pakistan border? Be warned: America-hating whippersnappers will say anything to get a Muslim elected president.
(Seriously, I tend to find credible the McCain camp’s explanation for why their guy has so many verbal miscues: he speaks extemporaneously all the time, and thus increases his opportunities for such mistakes. Still, given how often McCain talks about Czechoslovakia, it’s also possible that he really thinks it’s 1993.)
[Update: More trouble for McCain re. pesky dates and Iraq. Fortunately, CBS edited his gaffe out of their coverage. The msm is just so doggone nice.]
40 comments
July 22, 2008 at 6:10 am
MichaelElliott
The weirdest part of this story is the mention that McCain has started substituting the Steelers for the Packers in his own POW story. That’s just strange. I can understand getting a little addled on a campaign plane at any age — but changing the details of your own biographical anecdote?
July 22, 2008 at 7:01 am
Vance Maverick
Yeah, that’s bizarre all right. But to Ari’s point: in the sentence
McCain will turn 72 the day after Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) accepts his party’s nomination for president, calling new attention to the sensitive issue of McCain’s advanced age, three days before the start of his own convention.
what functions as the “subject” of the verb form calling?
a) McCain’s turning 72
b) Obama accepting the nomination
c) Politico….
July 22, 2008 at 7:02 am
SomeCallMeTim
Seriously, I tend to find credible the McCain camp’s explanation for why their guy has so many verbal miscues: he speaks extemporaneously all the time
I’m sure that explains it. That, and the fact that he’s very old and easily confused. No worries, though. I’m sure a neocon regency would go well. After all, look how well Cheney’s went.
July 22, 2008 at 7:54 am
JP Stormcrow
but changing the details of your own biographical anecdote?
That one was no mere “slip of the tongue”, he was being interviewed in Pittsburgh, so his pander demon (which is apparently very strong and compelling) overrode his malfunctioning “truth” demon. The dates made it totally implausible as well. Actually, I now have doubts that the Green Bay Packers version is even true. He has lost the right to any prior presumption of truth. I noticed they did not mention the Sunni/Shia one, which also just happened to be politically convenient.
It may be “trivial”, but I want the Pittsburgh/Green Bay one to stick around at least at a low-level, no fans of those two teams really believe that it was a slip, sports is one place where folks in general are pretty good at judging authenticity.
July 22, 2008 at 8:07 am
TF Smith
My friends, John S. McCain III knew Tomáš G. Masaryk personally; you, sir, are no Tomáš G. Masaryk!
JSM III strikes me as an individual who combines the incisive leadership of Ronald Reagan with the sunny disposition of Bob Dole.
July 22, 2008 at 8:49 am
Sybil Vane
In his defense, I will say that the AFC/NFC teams most readily exchangeable for each other in terms of aura are definitely the Steelers and Packers.
July 22, 2008 at 8:51 am
Cala
‘Aura’ here means ’swing state.’
July 22, 2008 at 8:53 am
ari
And Iraq and Iran are only a consonant away! And Sunnis and Shi’as are all just Muslims! That how seriously I take my football, Sybil. Just so you know.
July 22, 2008 at 8:57 am
Sybil Vane
They’re not the same, obviously. Big Ben and Brett could hardly be mistaken for each other. But they have the same kind of pathos. Or ethos. Notably, the Eagles never figure into this anecdote.
July 22, 2008 at 9:03 am
neocynic
Now when the Sunni played the Shi’a in Super Bowl IX–that was a game.
July 22, 2008 at 9:17 am
Cala
Sibyl’s right about the similarities, but I’ll buy a hat and eat it if the pathos led to McCain’s confusion.
July 22, 2008 at 10:49 am
SomeCallMeTim
I don’t get the claim about the similarities. The Packers seem like the Cubbies of the NFL: an overpraised team well-suited to be packaged as “authentic” for the yuppies. The Steelers, on the other hand, look like they could live up to the team name. Even as he’s moved on, Cowher seems like the defining and appropriate icon of these Steelers.
July 22, 2008 at 11:26 am
Walt
O Fortuna! O Eagles!
July 22, 2008 at 12:20 pm
bitchphd
I’m pretty willing to buy the “extemperaneous” explanation, although I suspect that the Czechoslovakia mistake, for instance, is also partly age–not in a bad way, but just that “the Czech Republic” is a pretty recent development, and after decades of thinking of the country as “Czechoslovakia” one would continually make the slip. Plus Czechoslovakia sounds more like a real country name anyway. And it does bug me that the age bias thing is kind of *the* preeminent anti-McCain argument, both because blah blah its prejudicial but also because it’s a stupid and weak argument (as are all ad-hom type reasons why so-and-so shouldn’t be elected).
OTOH, it works in the context of an “status quo” vs. “change” message, and when it’s expressed that way I’m totally cool with it.
July 22, 2008 at 12:55 pm
neocynic
I’ve mentioned this before here, but that won’t stop me from becoming an even bigger ass about my one familial connection to history:
My fourth(?) cousin *mumblemumble* times removed was Edvard Beneš, who helped Masaryk create Czechoslovakia, served as Masaryk’s vice president, and twice served as president. Until the Klement Gottwald and the communists showed up, that is.
There. Enough attention-whoring for me.
Oh, I’m supposed to be joking here. Um. Okay:
John McCain told Chamberlain that Hitler would only invade Bohemia, so the rest of the world could ignore his threats. At that point, McCain had centuries of foreign policy experience, so Chamberlain listened to him, and the rest is history.
Sorry.
July 22, 2008 at 12:56 pm
SomeCallMeTim
because it’s a stupid and weak argument
Except for the real possibility of age-related dementia, right? (As I understand it, we already went through this once before with a Republican president.)
July 22, 2008 at 1:01 pm
Vance Maverick
If I were to say, “John McCain is wrong on policy X, because he’s an old man,” the ad hominem reflection is plainly a weakness in the argument. But if I were to say, “John McCain is less likely to serve effectively for the next 4-8 years, because he’s already 72, while his opponent is still in his 40s,” the ad-hom element is germane. Unattractive, maybe, and arguable, but (I believe) relevant.
The most serious counterargument to the second claim, I think, is this: whatever we think about McCain’s capacities now, it’s difficult to argue that the next 4-8 years will inevitably bring a steep decline. McCain is who he is, including these slips: his current mental capacity is an entirely relevant consideration: but we have little reason to think he must get worse fast. (Let’s hope, for instance, that this isn’t true of most of the Supreme Court.)
July 22, 2008 at 1:43 pm
SomeCallMeTim
it’s difficult to argue that the next 4-8 years will inevitably bring a steep decline.
I’m not sure that’s true. Age is the biggest risk factor for various kinds of mental decline, like Alzheimer’s disease, and the slope of incidence as against age can be pretty large:
(Wiki.)
July 22, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Vance Maverick
That’s fair, though a 7% chance is nearly “in the noise”.
July 22, 2008 at 2:04 pm
SomeCallMeTim
Yeah, that’s a reasonable point. And perhaps emphasizing a point of legitimate worry for political favor is illegitimate or at least likely to lead to illegitimate overemphasis. If I were a decent person, I might put it even more strongly.
In any case, I prefer to think of it as a 1% doctrine for Presidential mental competence.
July 22, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Vance Maverick
Also, taking those figures absolutely literally, the doubling of risk would reach 4 per 1000 at age 70, 8 at 75, 16 at 80, 32 at 85, and 64 per 1000 at age 90. So (putting far more weight on them than they can possibly bear) we’re talking about less than a 2% risk at the age when McMaverick would hand over the keys to the next backslapping warmonger.
July 22, 2008 at 2:21 pm
SomeCallMeTim
I think it’s 4 per yr., etc. As I understand it, something like half of all 85 yr. olds have Alzheimer’s disease. That said, that number might be changing–up or down, though for some reason I think down–as people live longer.
July 22, 2008 at 2:23 pm
SomeCallMeTim
I guess you actually did per year. I’m not sure where the 1/2 of 85 yr. olds comes from, then.
July 22, 2008 at 2:25 pm
SomeCallMeTim
Hmm. Maybe not. Making some unjustified assumptions, I get 140/1000 (10%) at 80, and 300/1000 (30%) at 85.
July 22, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Vance Maverick
Ah, that’s the number of new cases per year. It adds up if you plug in the numbers — I get 11% of 80-year olds, 23% of 85-year-olds, not counting those who already had it before 65.
July 22, 2008 at 2:35 pm
Vance Maverick
We’re pretty close, then. Conclusion: vote Obama.
July 22, 2008 at 3:03 pm
bitchphd
if I were to say, “John McCain is less likely to serve effectively for the next 4-8 years, because he’s already 72, while his opponent is still in his 40s,
Sure, but I mean, so what? Obama used to smoke, and he is a black man in his 40s: therefore he’s slightly more likely to have a heart attack in the next 4-8 years than the average American. Making that argument, though, would still be prejudicial.
Except for the real possibility of age-related dementia, right?
Alzheimer’s isn’t caused by old age; it’s an actual disease, and it affects young people too (though it’s more likely, I think, the older one gets). The old = senile thing is a prejudice. You can cite statistics to support the prejudice, just like you can find statistics to support other prejudices, but that doesn’t mean that doing so isn’t problematic, if you care about not being prejudiced.
July 22, 2008 at 3:14 pm
Vance Maverick
Of course, we’re not comparing the candidates to the average American, but to each other. So if there’s a reason to think one of them is significantly likelier than the other to be impaired in 4-8 years, that’s relevant. Your Obama example is not implausible — it’s weak because it doesn’t suggest a high probability of impairment.
July 22, 2008 at 4:23 pm
SomeCallMeTim
I don’t understand any part of your point, B. The risk of Alzheimer’s (and other forms of dementia) goes up with age. As I understand it, we don’t have very good tools to measure that risk in sub-populations, so we’re stuck with what we have. Every old person I know worries a bit about this, for understandable reasons.
As to Obama and smoking: I have no idea what his risk for a heart attack is, but I bet it’s pretty trivial. My recollection is that there are a lot of confounding factors with African-Americans–poor diet, poor access to healthcare, being poor, etc.–that don’t apply to Obama. Moreover, if Obama does die of a heart attack, we’ll know it and move on. No worries; the Constitution forces us to pick a spare. The concern is that McCain will be mentally incompetent and we won’t realize it. My recollection is that there are claims to this end about Reagan’s second term, and perhaps perhaps claims about Nixon (I seem to recall Perlstein mentioning something about Haig telling the military not to follow any crazy orders Nixon handed out).
Unfair and prejudicial would be making claims about his mental health based on the torture he endured. That, we obviously shouldn’t be doing, and I don’t think anyone (on the left, anyway) has done. Going after his age might be bad politics–there’s no way Obama does it, and it’s easy to imagine a backlash if other people do too much of it–but it’s not unreasonable or dependent on prejudice.
July 22, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Vance Maverick
Um, SCMT, I’m unable to regard the loss of a President (perhaps especially that one) with such…sang-froid.
July 22, 2008 at 5:28 pm
JPool
I think one could reasonably argue that Reagan with dementia was a less damaging president than Reagan without/at an earlier stage of dementia. I would say that if there’s an issue with dementia it’s that we (to my knowledge) lack a constitutional method for removing people who become mentally unfit to hold office. McCain’s age certainly should raise the “heartbeat away” stakes though.
I don’t care about sports at all, but my wife is from Wisconsin and this is making me a little crazy:
The Packers seem like the Cubbies of the NFL: an overpraised team well-suited to be packaged as “authentic” for the yuppies.
SCMT, I don’t know if you’ve ever been to this country we come from that called the Midwest, but, if you’d ever been to Green Bay, you’d know that Cheesehead love has nothing to do with packaging.
July 22, 2008 at 6:46 pm
bitchphd
Unfair and prejudicial would be making claims about his mental health based on the torture he endured.
Actually, this would be less prejudicial, because it’s less based on stereotypes rooted in prejudice. I mean, we don’t commonly think of people who’ve undergone torture or served in wartime as ‘crazy’; we think of them as ‘heroes.’ But we *do* commonly think of old people as senile, unqualified, etc. simply by virtue of their age and absent any other knowledge about them.
Which is why the “McCain’s so *old* thing” might well be an effective political complaint–what with tapping into prejudices people already have–but also why it’s kind of crappy, what with tapping into (and implicitly justifying) prejudices people already have.
July 22, 2008 at 7:16 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
“Every voter has a parent, grandparent or a friend whose mental acuity declined as they grew older,” write the Politico’s Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei.
Actually, there are millions of voters in McCain’s age cohort who don’t have to look at others to see examples of age affecting their mental acuity. They can just look at how the aging process has affected them personally. It was John Murtha, himself a septuagenarian, who said that the presidency wasn’t an old man’s game.
Ageist jokes aside, it’s not unfair to question the fact that McCain will be 72 shortly and perhaps not up to the demands of the office.
July 22, 2008 at 10:23 pm
ari
I’m too tired to weigh in with substance right now, but I will note that I’ve just added an update to the post. It seems that McCain made another major gaffe — about the timeline in Iraq — and CBS news edited it out of their broadcast.
July 22, 2008 at 10:31 pm
ari
To be more clear, McCain claimed that the surge was responsible for the so-called Anbar Awakening. But, oops, the Anbar Province woke up before the surge even started. Again, though, the real news is that the news decided not to run the gaffe.
July 22, 2008 at 10:32 pm
ari
And why am I talking to myself? I really have absolutely no idea. But it might be because I’ve spent five straight hours reading nineteenth century newspapers. Yup, that’s probably it.
July 23, 2008 at 2:29 am
JP Stormcrow
and CBS news edited it out of their broadcast.
And it is interesting that the portion of a reply that they did use was one where he repeated the Obama would “lose a war to win the campaign” bit that you highlight in your recent post. Video of the two answers here.
July 23, 2008 at 2:40 am
JP Stormcrow
Just a note on the Steelers/Packers discussion above. Everyone might not be aware of the context of the “confusion”. McCain has said repeatedly (and it is told in his biography as well) that one of the ploys that he used early on as a prisoner was to give the names of the Packers Offensive line as his squadron mates. When he was interviewed in Pittsburgh he said it was the Steeler Steel Curtain defense who he gave the names of. So no mixing of current teams. The Packers is at least plausible, they were the dominant NFL team when he was shot down. However, the Steelers were dreadful and no one in Pittsburgh probably new the name of the Steelers defensive line. The very good teams were just starting in Pittsburgh at the end of his internment.
Minor yes. Gaffe? Yes, but probably not a mere slip of the tongue or memory. Other than his pander/politically convenient urge maybe being less under control as he ages. And Ari’s latest “gaffe” is similar, geting the start of the Anbar Awakening wrong is not a “slip” it is part and parcel of showing the War Winning Rightness of John Sleazy Two-faced Lying Republican. (National level Republican politics has become a contagious mental illness which transforms people of already questionable principles and honesty and turns them into abject dissembling phonies.)
July 23, 2008 at 5:13 am
neocynic
I think the stereotypes would bother me more if the fear of an old man losing his marbles weren’t buttressed by McCain’s frequent demonstrations that his marbles are, in fact, not where he thought he put them.
July 23, 2008 at 8:11 am
Esther Buddenhagen
While there are plenty of folks in their seventies who have all their marbles where they should be, it is definitely the case that some don’t. However, it is also quite possible that McCain has never been as smart as people think he is/was, nor as informed nor as capable of good judgment. He doesn’t seem to ever have been much of thinker at all, and in fact his reputation for being a maverick may have been built on a tendency to fairly heedlessly accept ideas as they drop into his consciousness. Remember, he wasn’t a good student, was an erratic youth. His military experience was limited: he never did reach the exalted heights of significant problem solving that someone like Petraues has. His support for the surge doesn’t seem a sign of brilliance: as has been said before, it makes sense to assume that more manpower would bring more success. His years of captivity were probably pretty bereft of intellectual stimulation, indeed his attitudes over the years towards not only his own but others’ captivity are somewhat superficial. For instance, one could see how a really smart and committed person might jump at the chance for an early release so he could return home and turn the country on to what was happening to other POWs.
Sometimes it’s said that as we become older, we become more and more our true selves. Maybe that’s what’s happening. Maybe, too, someone should question whether McCain’s abilities or lack there of should be examined because it is important to do so, whether age is a factor or not.