While we're at it, perhaps we ought to mention to the McCain people that we have actually invented a wheel (it's round!!!)while they were counting their beer dollars. And, saints above! We have succeeded in improving the performance of carrier pigeons. They now deliver five out of eight times. Except to ZIP codes in Arizona.

If Obama REALLY wanted to use age as an issue, I'd suggest that everytime he mentiones McCain's heroism as a prisoner of war that he adds the phrase "...during the Vietnam War, FORTY YEARS AGO...." It's a subtler reminder that this was a long, long, long time ago.

Indeed, Julibird. As I criticize the McCain camp for oversensitivity, it is important for me to remember that a LOT of people who post here are extremely defensive about anything that might appear to be a critique of their candidate. That was the source of much of the Obama/Clinton swashbuckling that was popular for several months on the message boards. People have become really irrational; you say the slightest thing in defense of a principle (e.g., speak out against race- or sex- or age-based discrimination) and people jump to accuse you of being in the tank for the candidate your principle happens to benefit at this moment. It's partly because people want to soften the putative impact of concern trolls, but I also think some of them are astroturf trolls themselves, and are being paid to control the message with campaign psy-ops. It's an inexpensive way to get your talking points out. Some of them are even paying for subscriptions now, I've noticed.

That aide whomever it was, has a terric sense of sarcasm.

As far as Obamas technology savy, Obama got some silicon valley heavyweights to get creative and further exploit the internet for fund raising. Kind of how evangelists figured out how to use TV to increase their revenue stream. Isn't communication technology great at getting money from the most amount of people possible?

Yes technology at work, like over at the Obamas fightTheSmears.com, they actually ask you for your email password. Ignoring that some may not appreciate being spammed by friends or associates, any site (one representing a government official no less), that asks for your password is enough to make the Electronic Frontier Foundation throw up on their shoes and should be compared to killing babies and then nuked from existence.

In the end it's a choices between young and stupid and old and stupid. Apparently that's progress.

Instead of debating young vs old lets get real, let's focus on our similarities. Young, old, doesn't matter, we are all going to be dead sooner or later.

"That is, even as someone supposedly mocks another for aging, s/he has to be aware that s/he will also someday be in those shoes. That is distinctly different from the experience of mocking a black person or someone of the other gender."

True, a person will not change race or gender (at least, not without significant medical intervention!), so the mocking isn't the same.

But, actually, I think it's more similar than you suggest. Youth believes in its own immortality. We think we'll *never* "be like that old person". The "old person" is as much "the other" as someone of a different race or gender. It's the same schadenfrude. It's just irony that the old-mockers (may!) become what they deride.

I guess I'm the "whoever rails against ageism".

Please look at my posts. I'm not "railing". I'm not a McCain supporter. And I've repeatedly said policies, positions, and performance are perfectly acceptable targets for criticism.

I was responding to Koppelman's "unsubtle jabs about the candidate's age" and "McCain camp gets a little snippy" remarks, which made me think about how many times I have heard McCain's age mentioned, debated, commented on, and above all joked about. I wasn't critiquing Obama in specific.

All I ever meant to say is this: simply ridiculing McCain (or anyone) for being "old" is a cheap shot.

While I agree that as we age, we *can* be less able than our younger selves, and I *certainly* accept that critiquing McCain is not *necessarily* ageist, I stand *amazed* at how many posters seem to take issue with my posts. And lateagain, "ageism" is exactly like sexism and racism when a person's age becomes the sole -or the major - factor in determining said person's abilities. Particularly their mental and intellectual abilities.

(Let's not forget, McCain is a mere 2 years older than Reagan, who was elected in no small part because he seemed more vigorous than the 56 yo Carter. And the ever youthful Kennedy was quite ill).

but I wanted to say to whomever rails against the ageism:

I too object to personal and irrelevant attacks and for a while put the ageism into the same categories as sexism and racism. But upon more reflection, I think a more nuanced view is that ageism isn't quite the same for two reasons:

1. Unlike gender and color, it actually may matter. Science demonstrates that as we age we deteriorate in many ways, both mental and physical, and, while obviously each person is different, it's also obvious that almost all of the diseases we know about increase in incidence with age. It's not completely irrelevant that we may be getting an elderly man for Pres.--both in terms of his potential incapacity, either physically or mentally, or in terms of his death and therefore importance in VP selection.

2. Unlike gender and color, EVERYBODY ages. The other two are there or not, during one's whole life. But aging happens to everyone, and we all actually know it will happen to us all along. That is, even as someone supposedly mocks another for aging, s/he has to be aware that s/he will also someday be in those shoes. That is distinctly different from the experience of mocking a black person or someone of the other gender.

I'm not sure how much these distinctions matter; I think not much. But I'm sort of an accuracy freak, so I wanted to set out these two differences b/t ageism and sexism/racism.