A full mile separates the White House and Capitol, perfect space for a nursing home for our aging leaders.
Since there are no requirements that congressmen or presidents abdicate their positions voluntarily, I believe plans should be made to support them.
According to the Constitution, it would take a two-thirds vote of either house to remove a sitting lawmaker for disruptive behavior, so I don’t expect to see that any time soon.
As for the president, let’s not use the dismissive term “gaffe” to describe his periodic disorientation or massive mistakes about whether we have cured cancer or how many have died from COVID — but, no matter how much he shuffles or how many dangerous falls he takes while on blood thinners due to an irregular heart beat (atrial fibrillation), I don’t expect to see the 25th Amendment invoked to remove him.
Meanwhile, it’s just as disturbing to see Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s unelected aide telling her what to say on the Senate floor or how to vote.
And on the other side of the aisle, we painfully watch Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell absolutely freeze in the middle of a speech for almost a minute.
I have never examined him either, but he has sustained recent falls, and I have to wonder what an MRI of his brain would show.
And then there’s Sen. John Fetterman, who certainly doesn’t inspire confidence with his casual dress or his incoherent speech.
But the real question is how much he comprehends when he goes to cast a vote or sponsor a bill.
We don’t know.
But shouldn’t we?
Don’t we, the American public, have a right to information about the fitness of our highest lawmakers or chief executive?
Certainly, cognitive testing or MRIs of the brain will never be made a prerequisite to hold high office past a certain age, but this doesn’t change the truth that, to properly represent the people who elected you, you must at least be coherent.
Perhaps you are willing to accept this behavior in a grandparent and even smile lovingly, but do you feel the same way about the leader of the free world?
Unfortunately, this lack of transparency about officials’ fitness for office is nothing new.
Woodrow Wilson was hallucinating from the effects of the Spanish Flu when he met to sign the Treaty of Versailles, and Germany suffered more punishment at the hands of the British and the French as a result.
Wilson later suffered a massive stroke while still in office, and the government was essentially run by his wife, though few outside his inner circle new it.
During FDR’s last term, he was suffering from massive blood pressure elevations and ultimately died of cerebral hemorrhage.
Again, only his inner circle new about his condition.
This kind of secrecy has also extended to Congress, where Sen. Strom Thurmond became very sick in his last year before he died at 100, and Sen. Robert Byrd continued serving into his 90s, despite several hospitalizations.
Sen. Mark Kirk, was a healthy 52-year-old when he suffered a near fatal stroke in 2012 and was out of the Senate for a year before returning triumphantly.
His return was inspiring, though the full details didn’t come out until years later.
The main issue here has never been about age per se, but about transparency and fitness.
We can all relate to the courage of a sick or aging leader who fights on, refusing to “go gentle into this good night.”
Yet that doesn’t mean they are the best people to be assessing their own fitness; just the opposite.
And don’t we have a right in a democracy to leaders who can truly represent us?
Perhaps a short stay in my proposed nursing home will help rejuvenate a failing senator or president, but better if they did us all a favor and just . . . retired.
Marc Siegel, MD, is a clinical professor of medicine and medical director of Doctor Radio at NYU Langone Health and a Fox News medical analyst.
This story originally appeared on NYPost
