Link.
The most important thing you should learn is this:
JOHN MCCAIN IS OLDER THAN THE CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE. YES, CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES. IF YOU HAD A TIMELINE AND YOU HAD JOHN MCCAIN AND CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES, JOHN MCCAIN WOULD GO FIRST, THEN CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES.
That is all.
So, if you apply the method of “George Bush - gas prices” linkage, we can say that John McCain is responsible for the chocolate chip cookie. Go John!
So, if you apply the backwards liberal logic that John McCain is too old to be President, what say we do with Ted Kennedy, Diane Feinstein, Frank Lautenberg, Danial Inouye, Daniel Akaka, Carl Levin and Herb Kohl–all senators older than McCain? Should we take anything that they say seriously, cause they’re obviously too old to be competent, much less put their shoes on the right feet. And oops, how could one forget that old fart in WV, Robert Byrd? what is he? a 100 now? And Billary will be what? 65 when she runs again in 2012? Too close of call for sure.
what say we do with Ted Kennedy, Diane Feinstein, Frank Lautenberg, Danial Inouye, Daniel Akaka, Carl Levin and Herb Kohl
….umm… not vote for them for President?
Is this a riddle or something?
For my part, as fascinating as it is to learn about the number of things that are either older or younger than I thought they were, I find this whole “he’s so old” thing to be distasteful, easily as bad as “he’s too black” or “she’s too female” to be President.
Two things about this line of attack:
1) It gives him an excuse, somehow, to say crazy things like “It is safe to walk around Baghdad,” “let’s expel Russia from the G8,” and “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran.” If you keep pointing out how old McCain is, you look like the scoundrel who beats up on an old man when he says something horrible.
I’d much rather push the message that McCain maintains fairly reasonable mental faculties, but that even in his reasonable state he has a hair-trigger temper and questionable judgment.
2) If we’re trying to scare people about the prospect of him being too old to survive the office, I’d remind everybody that McCain enjoys a government-subsidized health plan that keeps him in great shape. I’d also remind everybody that John McCain doesn’t want you to enjoy the same benefits he has. Because he’s more special than you.
Agree with SpiderJ. I’m not a big fan of the whole “McCain is so OLD LOLOLOL!!!!” line of argument. Making fun of the elderly is both cruel and lame.
saw this on Balloon Juice and just had to share:
McCain was born a week before Buddy Holly.
Which means McCain’s not only older than the day the music died, he’s older than the day it was born.
I third the motion.
There are plenty of legitimate things to ding McCain for. Let’s leave age, race and sex out of the discussion.
spiderJ, umm, what? Being old brings with it a myriad of bad effects on health. It greatly increases the odds of dementia, heart disease, and most importantly, death while in office. How exactly does that make this argument as bad as arguing that black people shouldn’t be Presidenty or Women shouldn’t be president? McCain isn’t in his 60’s, he’s 72. Thats the average life expectancy.
No. Age is actually important and has actual bearing on the job someone will do and whether they are up to it or not. A black dude isn’t going to just start cracking under the pressure and drinking malt liquor all day, a woman isn’t going to get the vapors and become hysterical. Thinking thats true is bigotry. An old man who regularly forgets things on the stump could have a serious lapse of memory, and a n old man who refuses to release his health records could well have a heart attack. Thats reality.
At least McCain is 8 years younger than sliced bread.
Fine, but that’s not what this particular meme is doing. Rather than pointing out the specific instances of McCain having brain issues, all of which are fair game, what this does is say that simply because he’s old he can be assumed to be having brain issues.
I call bullshit on that. Paul Newman is 83–older than McCain–and he’s still as sharp as a tack. And that’s just the most famous senior citizen I can think of as an example; I’m sure many of us have grandmothers or grandfathers who have been blessed enough to keep most of their mental faculties.
Call McCain on his actual nuttiness, such as those incidents I noted above, is what I’m saying, instead of creating this idea of possible nuttiness based only on his age. That’s Rovian shit.
I find this whole “he’s so old” thing to be distasteful, easily as bad as “he’s too black” or “she’s too female” to be President.
McCain’s age is a legitimate issue, especially in the context of who his VP is. Age is a legitimate physical factor in one’s capability to be president, especially when the average American age of death (for someone who has NOT had multiple bouts of cancer, mind you) will fall in the middle of McCain’s first term.
If you would like to provide a non-racist explanation of how someone can be “too black” to be president, I am more than thrilled to hear it. And how, exactly, is one “too female?” Either Hillary Clinton has a vagina or doesn’t.
My point is that I find all three contentions to be varying degrees of simplistic and ridiculous. Right now there are people in West Virginia refusing to vote for Obama because they’re afraid he’ll start oppressing the white race, or worse, he’ll sell us out to al-Qaida. That’s what I mean by “too black.” And I’m sure there are voters who didn’t vote for Hillary because of a milder version of that old, stupid joke that they don’t want somebody who gets “cranky” for four days a month to be in charge of our nuclear arsenal.
As for age and health problems, I remind you that Dick Cheney is just five years younger and in poorer health than McCain, and he managed to survive, thus far, all eight years of his presidency.
Paul Newman is 83–older than McCain–and he’s still as sharp as a tack.
Well, it’s settled then. I’d vote for Paul Newman any day. He probably isn’t a republican though.
I remind you that Dick Cheney is just five years younger and in poorer health than McCain, and he managed to survive, thus far, all eight years of his presidency.
As far as we know.
Art Linkletter was just on a local PBS show. He’s well into his 90s and very sharp. He said his secret is to keep signing long-term contracts.
Duros - Ditto and ditto.
A candidate’s age is a legitimate issue because of accompanying decreases in psychological health, not to mention overall health. ‘Course, I don’t think that anyone should vote against anyone simply because they’re old. Being old is too many steps away from actual ineptitude… a better barometer for McCain’s mental health/judgment is the crazy things he says and the semi-frequent times he’s forgotten important information.
That said, I think that maybe some of you are taking this particular site a bit too seriously. I think it’s pretty damn funny. I don’t consider it to be an attempt to be very serious about McCain’s age.
Okay people, it’s not just McCain’s age. It’s his health. The man has had three bouts with cancer and has shown signs that he is not as mentally sharp as he used to be. Calling attention to his age is just shorthand for these issues.
This is not analogous with race or gender.
Yeah, and my aunt is 68, and she’s senile as can be.
We’ve actually seen John McCain make the same mistakes over and over and over again. We’ve seen him search for words for much longer than a simple forgetfulness would account for. You can sit there and pretend this isn’t true, but reality is reality. You’re the same idiots who refused to mention what was obvious to a great many others in 1984, that Reagan was suffering from an obvious mental disease and that his performance in debates probably resulted from that. Do you really think a normal, healthy individual makes the same mistake and has to be corrected 6 times in 3 weeks like McCain and the Shiite thing? Do you really think a healthy 72 year old would refuse to release his medical records?
But hey, being old doesn’t come with any health problems. Being 72 doesn’t make it a great deal more likely that someone will die in office. It’s just like the difference between being black and being white. It just makes you look different! You people are dreaming fools engaging in PC on over-drive type behavior.
Jesus Christ, soullite, take a pill.
I am (a) not voting McCain, (b) not encouraging anybody to vote McCain, (c) happy to list the numerous flaws of John McCain that he has demonstrated up, down, left, and right throughout the past year, the past two years, the past three years. I’m even fine with noting that he seems to be losing his mental acuity.
What I disagree with, buster, is this overly simple attack on McCain in which the only reason to not elect him president is because he’s nearing the age of average American death. If you just say “he’s old” without adding “and you can see his mind slipping here, here, and here,” then the attack will in fact backfire.
I’m sorry I bothered to bring in race or gender. I was trying to make a parallel on the idea of superficial attacks, but clearly that didn’t read.
I’m sorry I bothered to bring in race or gender. I was trying to make a parallel on the idea of superficial attacks, but clearly that didn’t read.
I smell what you’re cooking. If charges of sexism and racism seem to be fair game, charges of ageism should also. Sure it’s superficial and meaningless, as all of these charges are, but it fits in with the meme of manufactured indignation.
Plus, it keeps the mainstream press from, you know, actually working for a living.