We Need Fresh Blood In Congress
So says David Harsanyi, pointing out that Congress older than it ever was before.
The average American’s life expectancy (or, as it’s referred to in Washington, the “junior senator”) is now a crusty 77 years.
The hippies told us not to trust anyone over 30. What about 70? There are 22 senators who have reached this seasoned plateau; another four are 69. So, despite the promise of impending “change,” Washington, in reality, still resembles a (painfully slow-moving) gerontocracy.
When I drop dead — excuse me, “pass away” — I expect to have a remote control and an alcoholic beverage in hand, a white Cadillac out front and a rigid belief that government owes me stuff. Politicians, it seems, only stop working to move into a correctional facility or a pine box. Really, are they so exceptional that we can’t let them go?
Some of you will argue that as Washington begins negotiating a “New New Deal” massive stimulus plan, it is advantageous to have on hand more than a third of sitting Senate members with first- hand experience of the Great Depression.
According to USA Today, the average age of a House member this term will be 57 — which is a day nursery compared to the Senate, where the average age now stands at 63. Both are records.
Thirty years after Ted Kennedy griped about Ronald Reagan’s advanced age, the man serves as a 76-year-old, nine-term senator recovering from brain-tumor surgery. Really, is there no one else available in the state of Massachusetts who can drop his Rs and vote dependably Maoist?
Bemoaning the state of affairs in Washington DC, and complaining about the crooks and liars that are in office, is an American pastime more treasured than baseball. But it’s not exactly an honest pastime, because even as we complain about them we keep voting the same crooks and liars back into office year after year after year until the point where the Senate chambers look more like a geriatric ward than places of inspired, vigorous leadership.
So what do we do? Term limits is the solution that jumps to mind, but I’m not sure I like the idea of a law preventing voters from sending someone they like to DC more than just a couple of times. I think the real solution lays with an end to voter apathy.
We need to start caring more who our leaders are, plain and simple.
But we also need an end to this disturbing trend where political leaders cling to their offices even as they grow infirm and largely incapable of fulfilling the duties of office. Ted Kennedy, in his condition, clearly cannot be serving the people of Massachusetts well. In South Dakota they just re-elected Senator Tim Johnson despite being so incapacitated by a brain hemorrhage that he refused to debate his opponent in the election even once.
How can a man not even capable of a routine campaign debate be said to represent the people of his state?
In a democracy it’s said that we get the leadership we deserve. Right now, given who we’re voting to put in Congress, I’d say we deserve all the graft and corruption that comes our way.
