The problem of old leaders – Churchill’s appointment last year

Old age is a thorny problem. I can prove that. As someone told my wife about me, “He has his age.” Definitely.

The question is how to measure mental degradation in the currently debated toxic incident of former President Joe Biden. When do you take away the rights of individuals to serve? When do calendars limit choice and freedom, rather than other measures? Do you require older people to pass all optional competency tests, from driving to driving in the country?

Some of the answers to the Biden incident, and many of them, are lively and fearless reports. Contrary to current claims that Biden’s decline in health was hidden by the press, nothing was hidden except for those near him.

Anyone who saw Biden on TV or heard him knew he had problems. A few months before the last election, I wrote a column about it. And others did. No one was hidden from anyone except for the complete severity of the decline that may have been buried by Biden’s family and his White House staff.

Assuming they strongly felt that the 46th President should stand aside, how would it have been managed if Biden refused their pleading? How do you know what his wife, Jill, told him personally? Biden had reason to continue to protect his son Hunter, a victim of a considerable political animus.

Above all, Biden probably wanted to finish what he saw as a business he started. The symbols were Vice President Kamala Harris and Deputy Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Before Biden ran for president, I chatted with him at a reception by a brain cancer support group in Washington. I interviewed some of the doctors involved in television and left thinking how positive Biden was and how old he was for his appointment for president.

But he ran, and the Biden presidency was a success, measured by optimism about the economy, peace and the future. Finally, it could have been carried out inertia. Only people close to Biden know the amount of staff work Biden has directed.

Biden wasn’t the only one who was struggling with the end of a successful political career. A much bigger man, the real person of destiny: Winston Churchill.

As the late historian and philosopher Roger Scruton bravely pointed out, the second Churchill administration was a disaster. The man who stepped into the role of prime minister in 1951 was not a great politician who stepped into the same office at the age of 65 in 1940.

Ten important years have been sacrificed. This is an old and unforgettable man, and his constant drinking added to his failed powers.

As he had during the war, he called the Daily Express news desk every night and asked, “What is the news?” During his second term as Prime Minister, he is reportedly often confused and unaware of what day it was. But he was Winston Churchill, the man who saved England. And none of the journalists at The Daily Express were going to whisper that Churchill was failing.

Lord Beaverbrook, owner of the Daily Express and Churchill’s best friend and ally, told the paper’s editor, Bob Edwards, “I’m dying on my feet and Churchill dying on my neck.”

Many of the UK’s issues were not addressed by the Prime Minister and his government, and were to haunt the UK until Margaret Thatcher became prime minister in 1979.

Churchill’s case is beneficial. If the Prime Minister had an age limit of 65, Churchill would not have been allowed to take office in 1940 when needed, as many companies have for top executives.

Candidity from a loved one may be the best defense of leadership against aging. After all, children should take or should take car keys from old or failed parents.

If you love what you’re doing, is it right for society to force retirement? “Work is more fun than fun,” said Noel Coward, a prolific British playwright. So it seems to be a expensive office.

Llewellyn King is the executive producer and host of PBS’s “The White House Chronicle.” He wrote this for Insidesources.com.