Joe Biden and the ‘old man defense’

No amount of Internet searching could shed any light on what is now being called, the old man defense.

We can all thank Mr. Robert Hur, the Special Counsel assigned to investigate President Joe Biden’s retention of classified materials, for this latest addition to the long list of “get out of jail free” cards now being printed up in Washington to help our non compos mentis president stay in office.

As an old(er) man, I wholeheartedly welcome Hur’s conclusion that, according to his report:  

…Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.

That conclusion and reluctance to prosecute a man who kept classified documents from his time as vice president (and before that, senator) in his garage should qualify Hur to be in the running for an AARP “Defender of the Aged” award, and it now gives old guys that know stuff and don’t throw away stuff a precedent to hang our feed caps on.

As a matter of fact, I’ve already used that defense  several times during the last few weeks to explain why my bathroom and bedroom are less than museum quality clean.

I’ve also cited it to my wife when she queried me on why I hadn’t checked off more items on my Honey do list. I said something like: “Hold on there, snookums. Remember, if it’s good enough for Bob Hur to stand down from prosecuting a sitting president, then you should demur, too. After all, I’m not pleading the fifth here.”

Unfortunately, my attempt at channeling Perry Mason fell on deaf ears. I was told in no uncertain terms that if I was so challenged then maybe she and I should visit some old folks homes together and check out their singles’ accommodations. I didn’t have a great comeback to that suggestion, so I just gave her my best blank stare.

She then said, “You might as well pack up that look on your face and save it for someone else, because I know you too well. You’re a slacker, a procrastinator, a put-off-til-tomorrow’er. You’re no more non compos mentis as me.” I thought about a smart comeback but swallowed my words before they had a chance to escape my maw. I had to admit, the woman had a point. My memory hasn’t faded and my step isn’t compromised. I was still firing on more than six cylinders in sharp contrast to our commander-in-chief whose often idling his engine, and I generally knew which direction I was headed and why. So what do I do? I did what any red-blooded old guy would do, I asked a couple of my pals if they thought if I was missing a few marbles.

The first fellow immediately said “Hell, no, man. You’re just as sharp as you were yesterday, but come to think of it I don’t remember much about yesterday.” The second guy exclaimed, “Well, I noticed that you didn’t finish your beer the other day before asking me if you could have another.” “Alright,” I said, “that’s hardly indicative of incompetence on my part (though incontinence could be lurking around the next corner).” I was a bit rattled by these two comments and they got me to thinking about where I’ll be when I’m Joe’s age. After all, I rationalized, his situation is vastly different from my own. My fingers clutch the T.V. remote, not the nuclear codes, and it’s been a long time since I entertained a head of state at my hacienda. Plus, my cats have never bit a Secret Service Agent and my wife doesn’t humor me like his wife does.

Then, my thoughts went to aging in general. About 50% of the senators are 65 or older and 151 congressmen/women are 65 or older.  That, in itself is not unusual, but a case could be made that many of them are more than slightly compromised either by their questionable competency or their ideology. My wife must have been reading my mind as I pondered the aging argument because she said, that Picasso fathered a child when he was 68 and that Benjamin Franklin was 81 during the Constitutional Convention talks (my wife knows that sort of thing because she  became an American citizen just last year). That buoyed my spirits, but my mind still wandered back to why older people are being given a pass and not held accountable for their actions.

Is our society that forgiving? I don’t think so. Bernie Madoff was convicted of securities fraud at 71 and was sent to jail and Donald Trump (who’s 77) is under indictment in three separate venues and is being intensely prosecuted by three different DAs. So, the only conclusion I can draw is that it’s either pure politics or the next logical step in America’s journey towards selective victimhood which will be applied according to your ideology. If you’re old and a Democrat you get absolution for your sins and escape prosecution, but if you’re a Republican, you get the book thrown at you.

On the surface, it looks pretty cut and dried, but I am willing to entertain other possible motives than pure political ones. I must admit, however, that I don’t know what they are, because the thought just flew out of my mind though I’m sure it will come to me, later. On second thought, maybe I’ll ask my wife. She seems to know what I’m thinking even when I don’t.

Stephan Helgesen is a retired career U.S. diplomat who lived and worked in 30 countries for 25 years during the Reagan, G.H.W. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush Administrations. He is the author of fourteen books, six of which are on American politics and has written over 1,300 articles on politics, economics and social trends. He operates a political news story aggregator website: www.projectpushback.com. He can be reached at: [email protected]

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