By: The Editorial Board – wsj.com – September 7, 2023

Politely, gently, tangentially, CBS News has asked Vice President Kamala Harristhe question that will be on the public mind in the year to come. “You’re 58 now,” host Margaret Brennan waded in. “If you win a second term, as you and the President are running to do, he would be 86 at the end of it.” Then the impolite political implication: “Are you prepared to be Commander in Chief?”

Ms. Harris: “Yes, I am, if necessary, but Joe Biden is going to be fine.”

This is the only possible answer for someone in Ms. Harris’s position. But without trying to be macabre, whether Mr. Biden really will be fine is a question for actuaries and a higher power. He’s two months from his 81st birthday, and aging can go the same way Hemingway described bankruptcy: gradually and then suddenly. Ms. Harris exudes confidence, but voters aren’t convinced. Even Democrats aren’t convinced.

In a CNN poll this week, 76% of Americans said they were “seriously concerned” that Mr. Biden’s age “might negatively affect” his ability to serve another full term, and 73% also worried about his “current level of physical and mental competence.” Among Democrats and left-leaners, the figures were 62% and 56%. Sixty percent of Mr. Biden’s copartisans feared his age might cost him the election. In head-to-head matchups with Ms. Harris atop the ticket, pollsters find that former President Trump wins.

The age problem isn’t going away, and Mr. Biden isn’t doing a great job of managing it. This week he began wearing a mask again, after first lady Jill Bidentested positive for Covid. Mr. Biden took off the mask Tuesday to give remarks and hang a Medal of Honor on a Vietnam veteran, before he skedaddled up the aisle.

“What we made sure to happen is that there was a brief pause—when there was a pause in the program, the President left,” press secretary Karine Jean-Pierreexplained. “That was done very purposefully so that, again, he wasn’t—he wasn’t there for too long.” Whether this is prudent health advice is for Mr. Biden’s doctors, and we don’t mean Dr. Jill. But the country has long since moved on from Covid protocols.

Regardless of party or ideology, we wish our political leaders good health, and Mr. Biden isn’t the only one who’s aging. Mr. Trump is 77. Yet given Mr. Biden’s public stumbles, verbal and literal, he can’t exactly go on a debate stage next year and pledge not to exploit his opponent’s youth and inexperience. That was Reagan’s famous line against Walter Mondale in 1984 and, for the record, the Gipper was only 73.

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Source: Biden’s Age Problem Isn’t Going Away – WSJ