That having been said, throwing around words like senility and dementia without having a clue what the clinical definitions are is not exactly responsible behavior.

McCain’s gaffes are primarily aphaisic (the involuntary or unconscious substitution of one word–often similar sounding–for another). If you look at the record carefully, McCain has suffered from aphasia throughout his entire public career. Aphasia is not considered, especially in people who have manifested it for years, to be a sign of senility or dementia.

I don’t support McCain, and wouldn’t vote for him. His age is certainly a legitimate factor in the campaign.

However, to start calling somebody senile on the basis of aphasia reveals a lot more about the person casting the aspersions and their willingness to say anything necessary to win an election than it does about the candidate.

(Obama, by the way, appears to suffer from a slight stutter that often makes him place words in the wrong place in a sentence. This tends to show up in impromptu interviews. Does that make him mentally incompetent?)

It is not McCain’s age that I am attacking, it is his mental competence due to a possible illness or condition like dementia or senility. I suppose I do discriminate against people who are mentally incompetent wanting to be President. Fine. I will accept that.

But I do prefer that a person possess his facilities while running the free world.

However, the Presidency is perhaps the most grueling job in the world (assuming the person performing the job gives a crap), and based on pictures of Carter, Clinton and Nixon adds about 7 dog years to the age of the holder for every term. I know an 80 year old guy who is an expert at laying concrete, but he can’t handle four hours on a jackhammer any more.

Obama likely misspeaks as often as McCain, but McCain is automatically attacked for it because of his age. Just because someone is 72 doesn’t mean he’s lost his faculties. There are plenty of seniors who are just as sharp as they were in their 40’s. You can’t lump them all together anymore than you can lump all African Americans together in terms of their intellectual capacity. How offended would you be if someone jumped on Obama’s every bumbled phrase as being the result of his race? Sorry, but bigotry is bigotry regardless of the target.

You probably don’t realize this because you’re so hyper-focused on your Obama love, but your consistent attacks on McCain’s age are just as offensive as the racist remarks people hurl at Obama.

You are categorizing an entire class of people as being doddering fools and conveniently forgetting that senior citizens are the most dependable voting block in the country; certainly more dependable than the Obama supporters’ demographic (youth and African Americans). Don’t forget that people generally improve and mature with age. I read the comments of some of the older posters on this board and I’m humbled by their knowledge. Perhaps you would do well to set aside your immaturity and obsession with your demigod for five minutes and try to learn something from them.

McCain is far more “with it” than Obama when engaged in non-scripted speeches, despite his age.