Oscar Wilde famously said that “with age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.”

Whether we get wiser as we age is open to argument, but the years inevitably take their toll in myriad other ways.

As we have seen with 84-year-old Mitch McConnell’s vanishing act since a fall at his Washington, D.C. home on June 14, our health is often the casualty of advancing age. It was not his first public illness. The former Republican Senate leader froze mid-sentence for over 20 seconds twice, at two separate press conferences in the summer of 2023.

Lindsey Graham, then 71, paid the ultimate price with his life on July 11 after suffering an aortic dissection (a tear in the inner layer of the main artery) likely caused by arteriosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

Of course, the young can be hurt in falls or even die from heart problems. But the deterioration of the mind and the body is largely the province of the old.

Which brings me to the elephant in the chambers of Congress that McConnell’s bizarre disappearance has finally highlighted—even to our 80-year-old president: How did we allow our leaders to become so goddamned old?!

It seems unlikely that our lawmakers will do much about it. There’s a bipartisan self-interest here … both parties have turned Capitol Hill into an old........

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