I just got an email from Democrats.com (how I got on their mailing list is a mystery to be solved later) calling for McCain to get tested for dementia. See below the fold.
While I was at it, I googled for news stories on this topic. A couple of those are below the fold, as well.
This is starting to have legs. We need to put on shoes, get it a car, put it in the driver's seat, load it up with gas, and get it on the road. (You may add your own, equally lame but pointed, metaphors in the comments.)
Here is the relevant part of the email, in full:
McCain's Age is No Joke
While Ted Kennedy and Michelle Obama were rocking the Democratic convention in Denver, John McCain made his 13th appearance with Jay Leno to joke about his age.
But McCain's age is no joke. He will turn 72 on Friday and would be halfway to 73 if elected and sworn in on January 20. That would make him the oldest first-term President ever, two years older than Ronald Reagan. He has survived four skin cancers (melanomas), including one in 2000 that was classified as Stage IIa.
McCain is two years older than his father was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at 70. He is 11 years older than his grandfather was when he died suddenly of a heart attack at age 61.
The United States cannot afford the risk that McCain would die suddenly in the middle of an international crisis.
Nor can we afford the risk of dementia. 22% of Americans over 70 are affected by mild cognitive impairment, while 13% of Americans over 65 have Alzheimer's. Ronald Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's at age 83, but early signs were evident during his first term. Britain's "Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher developed dementia at age 75.
McCain has never had an Alzheimer's test, even though he has 6 of the 10 warning signs , including his inability to remember recent facts like the number of homes he owns, the $1M lawsuit he filed in 1990, or the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003.
John McCain owes America a thorough neurological examination for cognitive impairment and possible Alzheimer's long before Election Day.
Sign our petition to the Corporate Media:
http://www.democrats.com/...
And here's some more:
McCain stutters and stumbles -- is he experiencing age-related dementia? John Edwards flames out in scandal and Obama faces reporters in Hawaii wearing a polo shirt -- has he grown too smug? Which is more significant -- McCain's negative, truth-twisting ads or Obama's seemingly snooty refusal to address them? LA Times Critic's Notebook 17 Aug
[I]t would be not only gratuitously cruel but dumb to blame McCain blunders like his call to "deliver bottled hot water to dehydrated babies" on his age. But many of McCain’s verbal mistakes over the past few months fall into a different category: Though unintentional, they are errors of political expedience.
In just the past six weeks, McCain has referred repeatedly to Czechoslovakia as though it still existed and to Vladimir Putin as though he were still president of Russia. More significantly, he has claimed that Iraq borders Pakistan, that the Anbar Awakening occurred after the surge, that the Iraq war was America’s first major armed conflict since 9/11, and that, unlike Obama, he would prefer to speak outside the country only after being elected president. New York Magazine: "The Real Reason McCain’s Age Might Matter" 15 Aug
McCain clearly falls in the population susceptible to this -
- not Alzheimers, but less pronounced cognitive impairment, described thus: Some older people may have mild cognitive problems without meeting criteria for dementia. Mild cognitive impairment might affect attention, language, judgment, memory, reading, or writing. It may be noticeable to the individual or to other people, but it does not severely impair activities of daily living. Few studies examine the frequency and course of mild cognitive impairment in older adults.But couuld it affect decison-making in highly complex areas where answers require strong mental skillls and swift assimilation of new facts. Under the pressure of a campaign or public office, this is not easy. Running a war with potential terror strikes imminent may be not a time when you hope your president isn't having an off-day and a litte confused - Shiites? Sunni? Which are the bad guys?. Few doubt that Reagan suffered some mental decline in office - though not into subsequent Alzheimers till after office.
It seems to me a legitimate and not too rude a subject to bring up in the campaign. Andrew Sullivan in The Atlantic, 7 Aug
Most of the references I found were not to reporters or commentators, but to LTE's describing a relative's experience with Alzheimer's or similar age-related problems, and how McCain seems disturbingly similar to that relative in many ways. (Too many to list here, and we have similar diaries and comments on dKos as well.)
Just to review:
- He didn't know (or didn't remember) the difference between Sunni and Shi'a. Several times. Which Fox's Brit Hume tried to excuse as a "senior moment."
- He said Iraq and Pakistan share a border.
- When al-Maliki echoed and backed up Obama's call for a withdrawal timetable, McCain insisted it couldn't be true. (This could be read as posturing rather than as dementia, but his refusal to accept a timetable, followed by his acceptance of the timetable Obama has supported, followed by some backsliding, certainly show McCain as inconsistent, confused, and incapable of knowing what he's saying.)
- He insisted that the "surge" had been responsible for the Anbar awakening, even after it was pointed out to him that the awakening started 6 months before the surge was even announced.
- He sometimes still thinks Czechoslovakia is a country.
- And of course, he couldn't remember how many houses he has.
McCain's anger issues - a sign of mental instability on more levels than just dementia - are also getting some play, finally; of course, here we've been diaring the subject just a mite. Oh: Here's another useful story on that one:
President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. "Andy" Card, Jr. has observed Senator John McCain's notorious outbursts of anger first-hand, Card said in his first extensive interview since leaving the White House.
Referring to the Republican front-runner for president, Card said, "Sometimes he was pretty angry, but I felt as if he was putting on a show. I don't know if it was an emotional eruption or for effect."
In a July 5 NewsMax.com article, former Senator Bob Smith, a New Hampshire Republican who served with McCain on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, "I have witnessed incidents where he has used profanity at colleagues and exploded at colleagues.... He would disagree about something and then explode.
"It was incidents of irrational behavior. We've all had incidents where we have gotten angry, but I've never seen anyone act like that." Gunowners Aug 2006
In fact, google "McCain anger" and you get over4 million hits.
An excess of ammunition, perhaps? Only if we don't start firing it.