Retirement at 65 is ridiculous: when I was 65, I still had pimples – Comedian George Burns

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory – Physician and theologian Albert Schweitzer

Anyone can get old. It was easy, noted comedian Groucho Marx, “all you have to do is live long enough.”

Unfortunately, it’s being held against US President Joe Biden, 81.  Compared to him, apparently, Malaysia’s 99-year-old Mahathir Mohamad comes across as the German who discovered relativity and we all know our Albert is no Einstein.

The President’s re-election bid against a resurgent Donald Trump isn’t looking good, especially after a recent televised debate with his opponent ignited concerns about his age, health and mental ability: the President often appeared shaky and confused.

So far, however, the Democrats who have urged him to abandon his 2024 election bid have been few. That could change in a heartbeat: on Wednesday, Hollywood actor and Democratic supporter George Clooney called on Biden not to stand, and party grandee Nancy Pelosi stopped short of backing him.

A new poll released Thursday showed more than half of Democrats say Biden should end his bid for a second term, and two thirds of Americans believe he should quit the race. But the debate did not seem to have moved the overall battle with Trump, with the former president and the incumbent remaining in a dead heat on 46 per cent, according to the Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos survey.

It’s not hard to understand why.

The President is suspected of showing his age, of forgetting what he’s already forgotten and, by the Republicans, of being “in the prime of his senility.”

The White House has denied all these allegations but some of his staffers are beginning to wonder. He likes giving advice, one staffer recalls, “one day he took me aside and left me there.”

Mr Trump, 78, also has a bad memory which the Republicans extol as a sure sign of a clear conscience. For his part, the Donald has boasted that his memory is as good as an elephant. So good in fact, that “they often consult me.”

You can see why the American voter might feel stuck between a rock and a hard place. Or, phrased more elegantly, torn between a forgetful old coot and a lying sack of potatoes.

Mr Biden has given fewer news conferences than his predecessors, and recent ones have only been with foreign leaders, restricted to two questions each.

Coupled with a lack of interviews, it has led critics to accuse the White House of shielding the effects of age on America’s oldest president.

Mr Biden has called his debate meltdown a “bad night,” blaming it on a cold and jet lag.

Mr Clooney tried to torpedo the narrative that it was a one-off, saying it was “devastating” to admit but the signs were also clear at a June 15 fundraiser in Los Angeles he hosted

Sleepy Joe thought it was better to be forgetful because he suspected everything looked bad if you remembered it. But he knew he was a better man than the Putin-praising, greenhouse gas-emitting, ozone-depleting, seal-clubbing, trash-talking, lie-spraying hellhound that was the Donald.

The trick was to remember it. 

ENDS