Senior Statesmen…not! Would that the two bickering children I beheld on June 27th…who I can only forgive because both of these senior citizens have obviously lost it one way or another…could even be described as gentlemen!
Given my own age, I am…whether you like it or not…claiming the right to be ageist. But I’m old enough to remember the first Kennedy-Nixon presidential debate in which the then Senator Kennedy started with, “Mr. Smith [that debate’s moderator], Mr. Nixon. In the election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln said the question was whether this nation could exist half-slave or half-free. In the election of 1960, and with the world around us, the question is whether the world will exist half-slave or half-free, whether it will move in the direction of freedom, in the direction of the road that we are taking, or whether it will move in the direction of slavery.”
Mr. Smith? Mr. Nixon? Shall we, can we bear to, compare to the first presidential debate 64 years later to answer the question of whether we moved in any direction we could possibly want? I’m not even addressing the issues; I’m just starting with basic civility and the dignity of those that could lay claim to the title of statesmen…or “statespeople.” Surely no such respect can be afforded opponents who refer to each other with gender-specific pronouns rather than name amidst incessant rebuttals that consist of accusing each other of lying.
