Political Editorial

A lot of people are making a fuss about how old John McCain is and how he still refers to Russia as the Soviet Union. Come on, people. He can't help that he's 80 years old, and I too am nostalgic for the hockey rivalry we had with the great Communist empire. Maybe we shouldn't make such a big deal out of that stuff.

So let's take a look at a few geographically competent people who are actually older than John McCain. And let's learn about ourselves and the elderly people who fill our grocery stores.

An Old Ecuadoran Woman
Age: presumably mid- to late-80s, but no one knows for sure
Life Accomplishments: trained circus monkeys, authored one of the most significant South American peace accords in modern history, briefly married to several well-known revolutionaries no United Statesian has ever heard of
What People Are Saying: "She looks like my grandma, if my grandma was Hispanic." -Brad Pitt.
"If I knew how to speak Spanish, I bet I could learn a lot from this lady. I'm not joking. That's not a joke." -Al Franken
Why is it better to be older than McCain? Because she still refers to Russia as Russia (though she means Czarist Russia, which is more anachronistic). Also, she's at that old age where old is cute, not ugly. People want a cute president (note: I can think of no exceptions to this statement).



An Old Man Who Spends All His Time Feeding Pigeons at the Park
Age: at least 90, so younger than he looks
Life Accomplishments: knows every state capital, tried to talk Lee Harvey Oswald out of moving to Dallas
What People Are Saying: "I see that guy all the time. I always thought he'd be cool to talk to, but I'd never go up to him. I think I'm afraid of old people." -my dog
"One time when I was walking through the park, I saw him feeding the pigeons, and I thought, Geez man, you're just drawing a giant crowd of pigeons. Get the heck out of here and let us walk through the dang park. I was gonna start kicking pigeons around, I was so pissed." -Oprah Winfrey
Why is it better to be older than McCain? Because people like dudes with canes (i.e. Fred Astaire in all those movies where he danced with a cane) as well as dudes who can't walk (i.e. FDR, who won more elections than any other presidential candidate ever).

Yoda
Age: 900?
Life Accomplishments: failed to save Old Republic, green, dead
What People Are Saying: "Was that guy even born? I think he just leapt out of a giant blue orb. And he was already old when that happened." -Emperor Palpatine
"This guy didn't just get old by sitting around like a lump of cheese. He's like accelerated-the-passage-of-time old. That's some serious old. I mean, look at that face! You don't get ears like that by sitting around like cheese." -Katie Couric
"Hey, why am I not on this list? I'm like 200 or something." -Emperor Palpatine again
Why is it better to be older than McCain? Because being president doesn't matter when you're 900. Not that you can't be president when you're that old--you'd be practically unstoppable in any fair election--but once you get that old, you pretty much have every Guinness World Record there could be, so being president kind of loses its appeal. Also, cane bonus applies again.