"Age and the Passing of the Torch"

 

 

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

 

Thought of the Day

“Age and the Passing of the Torch”

September 23, 2023

 

“At twenty a man is a peacock, at thirty a lion, at forty a camel,

at fifty a serpent, at sixty a dog, at seventy an ape, at eighty a nothing at all.”

                                                                                                                                Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658)

                                                                                                                                Spanish writer and philosopher

                                                                                                                                The Art of Worldly Wisdom, 1647

 

For Queen Elizabeth, 1992 was her annus horribilis. I had my own – far less significant – diem horribilis last Sunday. Unlike Elizabeth’s year, some of what happened to me was, surely, age related. I had tested positive for Covid that morning. Then, feeling groggy and with slurred speech, I fell twice. Apart from a bumped head, bruised hip and ego, no damage was done. Nevertheless after the second fall, we called health services. Shortly thereafter I was taken by ambulance to a clinic and later to Middlesex Hospital. Tests showed no signs of a stroke or brain injury, and on Tuesday I came home, with a cane but that was because of the bruised hip.

 

The effects of age are not necessarily chronological, and they differ greatly from one individual to another. My father died at 58, while his father died one day shy of 90 and his mother at 92. While they became physically frail, both had their wits until they died. Cancer, heart disease, and senility are more common as one ages. Muscles lose tone and bones become brittle. But there are those like Henry Kissinger who are physically able and mentally alert at 100. Many people don’t let age stop them.  The Wall Street Journal, last June 25^th, published an article, “Why High-Powered People are Working in Their 80s.” In it they quoted data from the Census Bureau that roughly 650,000 Americans over 80 were working last year. My younger brother who turns 81 in October continues to work as a partner in an investment firm. My father-in-law went to work most every day as an admiralty lawyer, until he died at 77. Old age, mental acuity, and employment are not incompatible. For some, but not for all.

 

While Republicans have been vocal about the President’s physical and mental failings – based on visible evidence of dementia – the question of age has now been raised by Independents and Democrats. An August CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that “roughly three-quarters of Americans say they’re seriously concerned that Biden’s age might negatively affect his current level of physical and mental competence…” On the other hand, Alex Keyssar of the Harvard Kennedy School takes a more nuanced view. According to the July 17, 2023 issue of the Harvard Gazette, he “believes Democrats who cite age as a major election concern are probably really expressing ‘a desire for energetic leadership, a force for new ideas, new spirit, and new energy.’” Perhaps. But it seems more likely that the Democrat leadership is concerned that fibs, gaffes, and stumbles now define Mr. Biden – not good for his re-election chances, especially when his Vice President’s approval numbers are lower than his.

 

With Donald Trump currently leading the battle for his Party’s nomination, Republicans are caught in the same vise; thus a rising, bipartisan, interest in younger leaders. At his January 21, 1960 inauguration, John F. Kennedy spoke of “passing the torch” to a new generation. That happened. Eisenhower was the last President born in the 19^th Century. Franklin Roosevelt was fifty when he was elected in 1932, the first President younger than my grandfather. Kennedy was elected at age forty-three, the first President younger than my father. Bill Clinton was the first President elected younger than me. My grandfather, father and I were all in our 50s when the nation first elected Presidents younger than we were. Today, our three children are all in their 50s.  It is time to pass the torch. Following a recent TV interview in which President Biden touted his ‘wisdom’ and ‘experience’ as reasons to vote for him, Bonnie Wong, director of the neuropsychology program at Mass. General, allowed that there is some validity to the idea that with age comes wisdom. On the other hand, there are those who feel differently: H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) wrote in his 1919 book Prejudices: Third Series, “The older I grow, the more I distrust the familiar doctrine that age brings wisdom.” Age does bring perspective, but drifting minds are not compatible with wisdom. Nevertheless, it now appears that the 2024 election will consist of two, deeply flawed, old men, both accused of corruption and neither wise. We can picture them “yodeling,” as Lance Morrow wrote in Thursday’s The Wall Street Journal, “across the valley at one another: ‘Not guilty! Not guilty!’” Or, as P.G. Wodehouse more colorfully put it in The Inimitable Jeeves, the prospect resembles “…when Aunt is calling Aunt, like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps...” This is not a prospect most Americans want.

 

It is not just the last two Presidents – both running for re-election – who are old. The average age in the U.S. Senate today is 65. Political leadership in Washington resembles the Soviet Union’s Politburo of 1982 when the average age was 70. But age, alone, is not the issue. We all know octogenarians and even nonagenarians who are mentally alert and physically spry. While he was writing of women, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s words are universally applicable: “The best tunes are played on the oldest fiddles.” Having cognizant-alert, elderly advisors has merit, as they can provide a sense of continuity and, despite Mencken’s warning, offer wisdom to new generations of more energetic politicians who will listen to, respond to and be honest with the people.

 

We who are older must adapt to life’s challenges. As J. Alfred Prufrock says, in T.S. Eliot’s eponymous poem: “I grow old…I grow old. / I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.” But that does not mean that our political parties should make the American people choose between one old man who is riven by an oversized personal ego and who speaks hatefully of those who cross him, and a second, even older man who trips boarding airplanes, who cannot speak without a teleprompter, and who utters non sequiturs that baffle his audience and his advisors.

 

Watching President Biden makes one wonder what it would have been like to observe President Woodrow Wilson after his October 1919 stroke? That was not permitted, as his wife and doctor kept him hidden from prying reporters. That cannot be done today. However, the White House keeps the President’s appearances to a minimum, and mainstream media, out of deference to the office, remains mute about Mr. Biden’s deteriorating mental capabilities. But our allies and enemies are aware of what is happening. Not a good look for the most powerful nation on earth. Age matters, but what is most important is how one ages. In the U.S. today, it is time to pass the porch.

"Impeachment"

Sydney M. Williams

www.swtotd.blogspot.com

Thought of the Day

“Impeachment”

November 7, 2019

“Why not amend the Constitution so that any President

who is impeached and acquitted is permitted to serve a third term?”

                                                                                                William Mattox

                                                                                                “Impeachment Needs a Replay Booth”

                                                                                                Wall Street Journal, October 23, 2019

                                                                                               

Like most clever but sensible suggestions for Congress – the elimination of frivolous impeachment attempts – Mr. Mattox’s proposal will never be adopted. It makes too much sense for a Congress that prefers political theater to judiciously carrying out their responsibilities as legislators.  

The American journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken once wrote: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the people alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” And the granddaddy of all hobgoblins is impeachment, at least here in the fourth quarter of 2019, a year from a presidential election that will see the most vilified President we have ever had run against one of the most far-left leaning candidates ever nominated. “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night,” said Bette Davis in the 1951 movie “It’s All About Eve.”  For us Americans, it will be a bumpy year.

Cynicism fills the air. Politicians live by scruples known only to themselves. Their concern is their own welfare and that of their party. Their goal is power. That end justifies whatever means or processes are felt necessary to achieve it. Yet, they wrap themselves in cloaks of righteous indignation. “Every member should support allowing the American people to hear the facts for themselves…this is nothing less than our democracy.” Stirring but hypocritical words spoken by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as she allowed Adam Schiff, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee to conduct impeachment hearings – hearings held in secret, where Republicans were not allowed to call witnesses and to which Mr. Trump’s lawyers were banned from attending. Schiff and the media have made much of diplomats fired, like the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Do they forget that elections have consequences? Foreign policy is the responsibility of the President and changing ambassadors is expected and common.

The imbroglio of impeachment reminds one of Alice’s adventures in court over the case of the missing tarts. When the King asked the jury to consider their verdict. “No, no said the Queen. Sentence first – verdict afterwards.” What we are witnessing is a farce, but one with sobering consequences that, at best, will rebound to impale she (or he) who wields the sword when party leadership next changes, and at worst will damage our democratic Republic. In a recent op-ed in “The Hill,” Alan Dershowitz wrote that a foresighted Alexander Hamilton had warned that the decision to move forward with impeachment will be “more regulated by the comparative strength of parties than the real demonstrations of innocence or guilt.” John Durham, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut and now investigating the special counsel’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, spoke in March 2018 at the University of St. Joseph in West Hartford, CT: “One thing that I try to bear in mind, and try to encourage in new young prosecutors, particularly those who are making their bones or cutting their teeth, is an awareness of the incredible power that is wielded by law enforcement, and perhaps federal law enforcement in particular. Issuing a subpoena can destroy someone’s reputation. It can damage their business, hurt their families. It is an awesome power that we have, that should only be used in appropriate instances.” Wise words that should be heeded by powerful agencies like the IRS, the Justice Department and the EPA, as well as by members of Congress, especially the latter, as they satiate a lust for revenge that had its genesis in hatred.

In the recent vote to formally launch an impeachment investigation, the fact that not one Republican voted with the majority suggests that Hamilton’s concern is real. Looking at the three previous impeachments – Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton – two were acquitted (Johnson and Clinton) and Mr. Nixon resigned, as he likely would have been convicted, as his was a crime that could be deemed nonpolitical. The attack on Mr. Trump has been political from the GetGo, as the Resistance began before he took office. The Russian probe came to naught, as did attempts by Stormy Daniels and others to discredit him. The odor from Ukraine has more of a Biden smell than a Trump aroma. Unlike some Republicans when attacked, Mr. Trump fights back, a response that has surprised a Left used to submissive opponents.

The Left would have us believe that any defense of Trump is a “defense of the indefensible,” a phrase that has a nice ring, but one which has no applicability in this instance, as the aggressor has been for three years the Resistance, comprised of those who do not believe Mr. Trump deserves the Presidency, that he did not win  fairly, that  he is dangerous and unqualified, a potential dictator. What these detractors fail to see is their own, undemocratic behavior – using intelligence bureaucracies to find dirt on Mr. Trump, conducting closed-door meetings to which Republicans are barred, denying freedom of speech on social media and in universities, curtailing freedoms of religious expression. A government that wants to regulate one’s behavior is one that is dangerous to liberty. Which Party wants to provide Medicare for all, free college and cradle-to-grave care? As attractive as those programs sound, they come with a cost, not just in dollars, but more importantly in freedoms foregone. As Kimberly Strassel wrote in her new book Resistance: “Tyrants don’t get rid of rules; they pile them on.” Love him or hate him, President Trump has rolled back regulations, providing more freedom to individuals, not less. It is not he who is a threat to liberty.

There will always be extremists in a nation of 330 million people – psychos that represent the far right and the far left. They need to be watched, but they don’t represent the real risks to our democratic Republic. It is when extremism infiltrates mainstream thinking we have to worry, and that is what we are seeing in the resistance to Donald Trump. I have often expressed my dismay at Mr. Trump’s character, his Tweets, his rudeness and his profanity. But he does not represent a threat to our Country. If coarse language speaks louder than positive deeds, then criticism of Mr. Trump is warranted. But if mellifluous words disguise odious actions, then it is the Left that bears watching. The media have their eyes Right, leaving the Left unguarded. They are enamored by the “wokeness” of progressive politicians, with their political correctness and identity politics, by the charisma of Hollywood and late-night TV talk-show hosts, and with ivory tower-ensconced social justice warriors in our universities.  

Impeachment is but the latest attempt to destroy the man who was elected in 2016, the most investigated President we have ever had. In hanging Russian collusion around his neck in January 2017, the Resistance thought they had him. Two years later, the Mueller Report found no collusion. The whole idea that Putin would have preferred the mercurial Donald Trump whom he did not know to Hillary Clinton whom he knew well and whom he had handled successfully never made sense. That Mr. Trump is boorish lent credibility to the belief he was chauvinistic, but, again, nothing incriminating was found. The conversation with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, while Trumpian, was harmless and not unlike conversations other Presidents have had with their counterparts over the years. Albert Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over.” That seems to define Democrats in Congress today, in their search for a grail that contains evidence implicating Mr. Trump in some impeachable offense.

Impeachment is a distraction to a people who must decide what sort of country they want – Socialism, with its costs in dollars and lost freedoms, or free market capitalism, which offers the social and economic escalator of opportunity that takes people up and down. For all of our sakes, I hope they choose the latter.