Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), 84 years old, is becoming the chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee chairmanship — one of the most powerful positions in the upper chamber.
He is replacing Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), 91 years old, who earlier this month stepped down as chairman because of his failing health.
Failing health? No kidding. If you have had the opportunity to watch this way over-the-hill candidate for a retirement home on C-Span, you would have noted his slow and slurred speech, his stuttering and stumbling vocalizing, his trembling hands, his bent and worn-out frame.
Another classic example is Ted Kennedy. Old and worn out, he now has an incurable - and fatal - brain cancer eating away and destroying his mental facilities. But regardless of this calamity, he wants stay in the Senate so he can - he says - vote on important national issues. With his deteriorating brain, no less.
Or how about Ruth Bader Ginzberg(born March 1933) on the Supreme Court? She makes your average Halloween witch look positively juvenile by comparison.
True, with experience, knowledge and age comes wisdom, but with too much age, it all goes out the window.
We need an upper age limit on people like this who simply refuse to step down, doddering old fools that just can't let go the reins of power. In a case like Kennedy's, we need medical restrictions that clearly describe what conditions would disqualify any office holder.
And now we have another 84-year-old coot clutching the reins of great power with his trembling hands.
We should deserve better.
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