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A L S O+T O D A Y

Impeachment diary III
By Anonymous
Senate insiders dis the House Boyz, and spread a whole lotta rumors about Trent Lott
(01/15/99)

T A B L E+T A L K
Abortion: Where do you stand, and why? Explain your position in the Social Issues area of Table Talk
___________________
Brush up on impeachment at barnesandoble.com
___________________

Portrait of a political "pit bull"
By Russ Baker
Rep. Dan Burton, who called President Clinton a "scumbag," has a few questions to answer about his own behavior
(12/22/98)

R E C E N T L Y
Counting the dead children
By Jeff Stein
Critics blast U.S. sanctions that kill Iraqi babies, but leave Saddam fat and happy
(01/15/99)
Cracks in the bipartisan façade
By Joshua Micah Marshall
As House Republicans tried to depict their impeachment vendetta as a brave civil rights struggle, the important action was all taking place off-camera
(01/15/99)
Letter from occupied New York
By John Leonard
With City Hall behind barricades, Mayor Rudy Giuliani is getting ready to take his show on the road
(01/14/99)
Michael Jordan's final act
By Dan Brekke
The legend is leaving at the top. That's why we need him to stay.
(01/14/99)
Starr's lowest blow
By Bruce Shapiro
In indicting Julie Hiatt Steele, the independent counsel continues a pattern of bullying women
(01/13/99)
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American gerontocracy
news image Is the mental capacity of the aged leaders judging President Clinton a fit subject for commentary?

BY CHRISTOPHER SHEA
The Senate impeachment trial isn't about sex, it's about fitness to serve the country. Mental fitness, that is.
In the era of Viagra, 76-year average life spans and geriatric astronaut John Glenn, suggesting that advanced age might diminish one's capacity is a political and cultural taboo. The AARP is poised to pounce at any suggestion of discrimination against the elderly, and newspapers are full of glowing accounts of robust 70-plusers embarking energetically on second careers and even, à la Tony Randall and Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., siring children.
Only Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who liberally sprays acid on politicians of both parties, has bucked the unspoken ban by pointing out that some of the leading figures in the Senate's soporific theater are -- shall we say -- a bit long in the tooth. She mocked 74-year-old Chief Justice William Rehnquist's sense of humor (those wacky Gilbert and Sullivan stripes on his gown), 81-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd's fantasy that he is the reincarnation of a Roman orator and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde "lumbering" into the Senate, "leading that pack of gray-haired, gray-faced, gray-suited and gray-spirited fogies."
But age was on the mind of Washington Post writers, too. A recent Post feature story marveled at 96-year-old Strom Thurmond's rising to the occasion of the public trial. Basically this meant that as Thurmond swore in Rehnquist, he didn't fall over or lose his place on his cue card. "Thurmond's capacities are the topic of frequent gossip on Capitol Hill," the Post wrote, "and were even discussed in his 1996 campaign ... But the red-haired ancient ran the session without hitch or hesitation. As they so often do when contemplating Thurmond, people just shook their heads in awe." If reading a cue card and hewing to the rigid script of an impeachment hearing produced widespread awe, what exalted praise can we expect should Thurmond happen to produce a lucid, off-the-cuff argument?
Rather than merely drawing jokes from columnists, or inside-the-Beltway winks and nudges from reporters, shouldn't the quite apparent incapacities of members of the world's greatest deliberative body (in the portentous phrase of the moment) be cause for genuine concern? The Post's reference to talk of Thurmond's abilities as "gossip," and the choice of the words "were even discussed" in his 1996 campaign, suggest that it is somehow out of bounds, outlandish even, to suggest in polite company that a 90-plus-year-old man may -- just may -- not be up to the burdens of office.
The Post's reference to "gossip," without explanation, is too coy by half. I've heard the stories, too: One is that Republican staffers have been asked, if they find Thurmond wandering the hallways outside his office, to discreetly guide him back, to avoid embarrassment when people realize how out of it he is. But you hardly need to be plugged into a Washington social network to realize that Thurmond doesn't have the physical vigor and mental agility of a 50-year-old -- or, for that matter, a 70- or 80-year-old. You just need a TV.
Give Rehnquist the benefit of the doubt, at least for a few years. But take the universally revered Byrd, D-W.Va. On NBC recently, he gave a rare interview to correspondent Lisa Myers -- who was, of course, duly reverential. Reading recent profiles of Byrd, even the contrarian ones, one would get the impression that he was able to at least pull off a decent impression of Demosthenes, classical allusions dangling like Christmas ornaments from his every sentence -- even if, as the revisionist articles say, he's a bit pompous and minutiae-obsessed. But what I saw was a very old man, head bobbing slightly, who seemed to be moving at a completely different speed, in every way, than his interviewer.
The argument that the press gives politicians a free ride on the age issue is driven home in the most recent issue of the academic journal Political Science Quarterly. Herbert L. Adams, a professor at Stanford University's medical school, and Ard Brody, a retired professor of political science at Stanford, write that the media did "a shoddy job" explaining the ramifications of electing Bob Dole, senior citizen, in 1996. Most media accounts that explored the issue of age during the campaign, they demonstrate, gave a nod or two to the downsides of aging, invoked "wisdom" to balance the ledger and left it at that. Bizarrely, the newspaper stories that went into the most depth on the subject told readers that age shouldn't be a factor in their decisions.

N E X T+P A G E+| Bob Dole needs more than Viagra

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A L S O+T O D A Y Impeachment diary III By Anonymous Senate insiders dis the House Boyz, and spread a whole lotta rumors about Trent Lott (01/15/99) T A B L E+T A L K Abortion: Where do you stand, and why? Explain your position in the Social Issues area of Table Talk ___________________ Brush up on impeachment at barnesandoble.com ___________________ Portrait of a political "pit bull" By Russ Baker Rep. Dan Burton, who called President Clinton a "scumbag," has a few questions to answer about his own behavior (12/22/98) R E C E N T L Y Counting the dead children By Jeff Stein Critics blast U.S. sanctions that kill Iraqi babies, but leave Saddam fat and happy (01/15/99) Cracks in the bipartisan façade By Joshua Micah Marshall As House Republicans tried to depict their impeachment vendetta as a brave civil rights struggle, the important action was all taking place off-camera (01/15/99) Letter from occupied New York By John Leonard With City Hall behind barricades, Mayor Rudy Giuliani is getting ready to take his show on the road (01/14/99) Michael Jordan's final act By Dan Brekke The legend is leaving at the top. That's why we need him to stay. (01/14/99) Starr's lowest blow By Bruce Shapiro In indicting Julie Hiatt Steele, the independent counsel continues a pattern of bullying women (01/13/99) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		American gerontocracy Is the mental capacity of the aged leaders judging President Clinton a fit subject for commentary? BY CHRISTOPHER SHEA The Senate impeachment trial isn't about sex, it's about fitness to serve the country. Mental fitness, that is. In the era of Viagra, 76-year average life spans and geriatric astronaut John Glenn, suggesting that advanced age might diminish one's capacity is a political and cultural taboo. The AARP is poised to pounce at any suggestion of discrimination against the elderly, and newspapers are full of glowing accounts of robust 70-plusers embarking energetically on second careers and even, à la Tony Randall and Sen. Strom Thurmond, R-S.C., siring children. Only Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, who liberally sprays acid on politicians of both parties, has bucked the unspoken ban by pointing out that some of the leading figures in the Senate's soporific theater are -- shall we say -- a bit long in the tooth. She mocked 74-year-old Chief Justice William Rehnquist's sense of humor (those wacky Gilbert and Sullivan stripes on his gown), 81-year-old Sen. Robert Byrd's fantasy that he is the reincarnation of a Roman orator and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde "lumbering" into the Senate, "leading that pack of gray-haired, gray-faced, gray-suited and gray-spirited fogies." But age was on the mind of Washington Post writers, too. A recent Post feature story marveled at 96-year-old Strom Thurmond's rising to the occasion of the public trial. Basically this meant that as Thurmond swore in Rehnquist, he didn't fall over or lose his place on his cue card. "Thurmond's capacities are the topic of frequent gossip on Capitol Hill," the Post wrote, "and were even discussed in his 1996 campaign ... But the red-haired ancient ran the session without hitch or hesitation. As they so often do when contemplating Thurmond, people just shook their heads in awe." If reading a cue card and hewing to the rigid script of an impeachment hearing produced widespread awe, what exalted praise can we expect should Thurmond happen to produce a lucid, off-the-cuff argument? Rather than merely drawing jokes from columnists, or inside-the-Beltway winks and nudges from reporters, shouldn't the quite apparent incapacities of members of the world's greatest deliberative body (in the portentous phrase of the moment) be cause for genuine concern? The Post's reference to talk of Thurmond's abilities as "gossip," and the choice of the words "were even discussed" in his 1996 campaign, suggest that it is somehow out of bounds, outlandish even, to suggest in polite company that a 90-plus-year-old man may -- just may -- not be up to the burdens of office. The Post's reference to "gossip," without explanation, is too coy by half. I've heard the stories, too: One is that Republican staffers have been asked, if they find Thurmond wandering the hallways outside his office, to discreetly guide him back, to avoid embarrassment when people realize how out of it he is. But you hardly need to be plugged into a Washington social network to realize that Thurmond doesn't have the physical vigor and mental agility of a 50-year-old -- or, for that matter, a 70- or 80-year-old. You just need a TV. Give Rehnquist the benefit of the doubt, at least for a few years. But take the universally revered Byrd, D-W.Va. On NBC recently, he gave a rare interview to correspondent Lisa Myers -- who was, of course, duly reverential. Reading recent profiles of Byrd, even the contrarian ones, one would get the impression that he was able to at least pull off a decent impression of Demosthenes, classical allusions dangling like Christmas ornaments from his every sentence -- even if, as the revisionist articles say, he's a bit pompous and minutiae-obsessed. But what I saw was a very old man, head bobbing slightly, who seemed to be moving at a completely different speed, in every way, than his interviewer. The argument that the press gives politicians a free ride on the age issue is driven home in the most recent issue of the academic journal Political Science Quarterly. Herbert L. Adams, a professor at Stanford University's medical school, and Ard Brody, a retired professor of political science at Stanford, write that the media did "a shoddy job" explaining the ramifications of electing Bob Dole, senior citizen, in 1996. Most media accounts that explored the issue of age during the campaign, they demonstrate, gave a nod or two to the downsides of aging, invoked "wisdom" to balance the ledger and left it at that. Bizarrely, the newspaper stories that went into the most depth on the subject told readers that age shouldn't be a factor in their decisions. N E X T+P A G E+\| Bob Dole needs more than Viagra - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Become a Salon member. Click here.