That's funny, but I think - nitpicking - it loses something when it refers to things that aren't really all that old. Alaska's time as a state, for example. It became a state in 1959. That's older than you or I, but it's not older than my parents.

John McCain IS Izzy Mandelbaum:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcFSOnumgZA

i think that anyone who grew up in the"dont trust anyone over thirty" generation or beyond that, is just too old to be president now.
wiser, young, creative leadership is what we need now.
pantsuits, dusty medals, photo albums with long hair and flowery dresses need to be sent off to goodwill.
it is a new age now.
yes we can!

i dunno. i'm all for questioning the mindsets of days past, and i do think one of the issues in this campaign should be critiques of the way each candidate applies history to today's reality. but when they stand alone, criticisms of someone's age don't seem all that different from criticisms of any other facet of identity. in fact the very fact that ezra frames this post as "i'll do the age thing because they're doing the race thing" portends the way mccain will use charges of ageism as a shield to defend himself as he wages his own identity-baiting attacks. it's all a bit too ugly for me. then again, maybe i think this because i'm more old than young.

Some people change with the times, but most don't. And really, we're all products of the times we grew up and came of age.

McCain would just use made-up charges of ageism to shield him from racism, the same way Clinton supporters started screaming about 'feeling down' and 'periodically' to prevent Hillary supporters from caring about their race baiting.

winer

i am older too.
i remember a long time ago, a woman who seemed quite old at the time to me, was searching for her glasses.
she said as she was getting older,the world seemed to be getting further and further away from her.
i thought that was really poignant.
there is nothing quite like a young person who is hopeful,creative and wise, willing to take some counsel,but feet planted toward the future.
too many of us olders have one or two feet stuck in the past.
it really is a new age,and i think the younger ones need to lead us there now.
another reason why i am so enthusiastic about the leadership of barack obama and all of the young,creative, bright people he is bringing with him.

i think it is just great:-)

I laughed very hard at that website. But that being said I have a lot of respect for older people--hell, I am one myself--and a more important knock on John McCain is that its fair to say that he's old enough to have lived through some stellarly important times in our history and yet...and yet...he was an utterly conventional and conservative figure from the get go. You can't imagine, as you read that list of "john mccain is older than alaska...than mt rushmore...than this or that..." that if the matter came to a decision--if he'd been asked his opinion, that he would have been on the right side of the issue. for example, John Mccain is "older than the martin luther king" holiday and he "got to live to be older than King, too." But he opposed the holiday, and he opposed what King stood for. Isn't it pretty much the same on all the great movement forward that we've had as a society. If John MCcain hadn't been too busy looking out for his own career, or paying the price for bombing a civilian population, he would have been on the wrong side of every major issue in the last 70 plus years. That's a lot of wasted time and bad judgement to account for.

aimai

a more serious critique of McCain's mindset, which mixes a deep desire for World War II-style heroics with a habituation to the paranoia and fear typical of the Cold War-era.

Which can be matched to his entire life. Military brat, military service, naval attaché to Congress, Congressman, Senator.

That's a relatively narrow career trajectory, and doesn't even jibe with those in the military today, who more often see it as a way to pay for college and some other career while they're still young, even if it doesn't always turn out that way.

(Can I make that an assignment desk topic? Is there any good data on post-military careers for those getting out of the armed forces now?

jacqueline,

yeah, i think it's great too. i just don't think it's necessary to "play the age card." it pretty much plays itself. but yeah, for the most part, i think obama is a man for his time and his time is now.

(god. i'm speaking in cliches now...)

While we have movements promoted by liberals for fairness in the workplace that addresses things like race, gender and age, it seems OK with liberals to use age against their perceived enemies. So, race OK to use as well as Hillary has done or the white voters have done in WV?
Again, we see liberals telling us to "Do as we say, not as we do".