Reagan: hundred percent genuine parts
A Touch Of Nokoko by Kofi Akumanyi
"To the framers of the United States constitution the phrase 'elderly American' was not a term of abuse. They associated age with wisdom and made their dispositions for the great offices of state accordingly. Entry to the Senate was reserved for men of mature years. The dignity and trappings of the office of the president belonged, it was thought, to somebody grown grey, made by his years of conduit of national experience. However, much has changed since, the symbolic strength of the Presidency still resides on the Presidents' maturity ... "As the purveyor of the nation's aspirations, the focus of a renewed American sense of economic and diplomatic strength (President Reagan's own strong suits), the present occupant of the White House need fear no actuary's life expectancy charts...", The Times of London editorialised last week.I had decided not to comment on the renewed debate on age and wisdom until someone verbally attacked me and somehow linked a topic under very vociferous discussion with my age and gratuitously threw in the fact that being older than him I was behaving as if I held monopoly on wisdom. The only reason why I persuaded my right hand (it sometimes behaves as if it does not belong to the body) from smacking him across the solar plexus was because the grey matter accurately reasoned that that action would defeat the very proposition that age, indeed goes with wisdom.
The issue of age in politics, I suppose, has always been a long-standing problem. Most countries with written constitutions have ensured that those who take decisions affecting millions of their fellow citizens have age and maturity on their side and with them a generous helping of that which is acquired with experience - wisdom. This provision has seldom failed them.
However, the 'age issue' always manage to raise the ire of other people who hold the view that old age is not necessarily conterminous with wisdom and accuse, sometimes quite rightly that it is a ruse used to prevent the youth from taking active part in the higher echelon of power and decision-making.
What has brought the problem to the fore is the Mondale-Reagan debate which found the 73-year-old president fumbling and groping for words while the relatively younger challenger adroitly and effortlessly fielded through the debate and won as the better of the two. All hell broke loose as the opinion polls and press totalled the score. "Those who live by mass media effect, shall perish in the mirror of the television camera", they said.
The constant references to President Reagan's age do bother some of us who are fast approaching the biblical age of three score and ten. I was therefore naturally anxious to talk to some- one who would assure me that old-age (senility?) is not a debilitating and mentally incapacitating disease.
Dr J. Brogani, an expert in old age related problems and a White House watcher kindly obliged to talk about it.
"I'm terribly worried about the impression being created in American political circles that President Reagan cannot count backwards in sevens because of his age," I said.
"Who said that?" asked Dr Brogani sharply.
"I read this in the papers after the first television debate."
"Oh, that's the American public's penchant for seeking incapacity in political leaders."
"But the criticisms of Reagan's per- formance are becoming more and more strident and I'm afraid that there might be a grain of truth in them, don't you think?"
"No, research in the field with the President as the main material has given us plenty of interesting insight into ageing and how he copes with pressures of high political office."
"What did you find? I'm dying to know," I said. "They say the President can't master the details of office administration."
"You sure we're talking about the same man and not the other one in the Kremlin? The occupant of the Kremlin is a real example of frailty in old age. He is reputed to mime to his public speeches," he said, "but Reagan is a gem. His omni-competence is acknowledged on Capitol Hill."
"His adversaries would disagree," I said.
"They say it's all eye-wash."
"Jealousy; it is pure jealousy. The president, at his age, can outrun, out-jump, outplay many a man of the same special age with similar responsibilities." "Is he really anything like the television advertisement clips and footage released at the beginning of his re-election campaign?"
"All that minus the make-up."
"Tell me one thing. Has Reagan ever had a face-lift?"
"Are you kidding? Before his first presidential campaign when an aide suggested this to remove the wrinkles from under the chin and the crow's feet he fired the poor guy."
"He is proud of his elderly American looks, then."
"Of course he is, very proud of his age and looks no matter what the critics say."
"I'm glad to hear that."
"So fit that he even survived the assassin's bullet."
"That's gone down in history as one of the miracles of this age," I said. "Dr Brogani, is it true that the President challenged Mondale to an arm wrestling match to show who is fitter. Could he have won?"
"Hands down, without a problem."
"You seem to have faith in the President's physical capabilities.”
"Absolutely, except for one thing," he said. "His teeth are false! That's something even his wife Nancy doesn't know."
"You know how we Africans treat our elderly statesmen and Presidents in or out of power?" I asked him.
"No, I've been wanting to ask you this for some time."
"Simple; we tie them up to stakes and shoot them. That way we are relieved of all the problems of publicly debating whether they are fit to rule until they drop dead of natural causes!"
