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    Retire, Please

    Posted Wednesday, April 29, 2009 1:20 PM | By Emily Yoffe
    June, I admit once you read the litany of illnesses Specter has dealt with—two brain tumors, recurrent Hodgkin's, cardiac arrest—you've got admire his self-proclaimed "vim,vigor, and vitality" (which as Slate's Andy Bowers observed are three adjectives which mean, "I'm really old"). However, I totally agree with you that we are strangely lacking a discussion about the fact that an 80-year-old man with this medical history should be willing to step aside and let someone new run for a job with a six-year term. It surely says something about the life-enhancing effects of power that jobs that come with it are clung to like life-support. While most Americans would probably love to hang it up in their 50s, we have the specter not just of Specter, but of many others, like the infirm Robert Byrd, 92, from the state of Robert Byrd—I mean West Virginia, who will have to be carried out. I was amused by the recent congressional battle in which the 83-year-old John Dingell lost a chairmanship because whippersnapper Henry Waxman, who will soon turn 70, was tired of waiting his turn.
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