Ageism is a surpremely toughter nut to crack than racism or sexism in a political discussion.

After all, you have to be a grade-A loon to argue that darker skin or a vagina makes a person less qualified to be president. Debunked bell-curves aside, there's no "there" there. That doesn't stop campaigns from appealing to peoples 'belief' such things matter.

But age does matter in one context: health. The liklihood for most major diseases -- naturally -- increases over time. The human body is a finite thing. And while many have served well into their golden years in U.S. Government, there are plenty too who have been limited by their age.

But in DC discourse, "Age" is synonomous with "Vigor." Thus claiming that McCain is "confused," -- a legitimate concern, as I'll elaberate upon -- is somehow an ageist low-blow against a man who happens to be in his 70s. And DC's news scribes have a lousy track record keeping America informed of the health of their elder office-holders.

I think of Strom Thurmond, first of all. His last term in office was a joke -- a shuffling husk brought in for mumbled votes. By 2001, all mercy would have demanded Thurmond be retired from office. As the New York Times then noted:

Mr. Thurmond continues to make his way into the chamber for votes, but he walks haltingly and only with the help of aides, often one on each elbow. He sometimes seems confused at Senate hearings, where his participation has been reduced to little more than his reading questions from cards prepared by his staff. His chief of staff, Robert Short, known on Capitol Hill as Duke, makes most of the decisions in Mr. Thurmond's office, other Congressional aides say.

Thurmond was kept around because his health was more important than seeing a Democratic governor appoint a Democratic Senator in his place -- and he died about 6 mos after leaving office. (I had a similar fear with Tim Johnson in South Dakota after his stroke, and more recently with Ted Kennedy. (But all indications both retain their faculties -- and both are play legislative, not executive, political roles so their individual faculties are not solely responsible for the upkeep of the nation.)

McCain certainly isn't that old, or with his recurrant cancers facing any sort of known mental problems. But the fact that Thurmond's age -- and health -- were topic-non-grata in Washington discourse ('good taste' dictated silence, even as the heavily senile Thurmond was groping Sen. Patty Murray and lord knows how many Congressional aides -- even during the Clinton impeachment scandal when political lechery was a topic of dinner table discussion) shows that DC media can't be trusted to maintain the record.

But the real case in journalistic malpractice was Ronald Reagan.

Reagan -- as we all know, was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease upon leaving office, and by the end of his life didn't remember his wife, children or any soul around him. That tragic disease took him and terrorized his family as easily as it does millions of other Americans each year.

Back then doctors knew little about the disease compared to now. And the history books are very skittish as to how to handle the fact that Reagan clearly suffered from pre-alzheimer's in office.

(In the late 90s, Reagan's doctors made the pathetic attempt to clear themselves of malpractice in letting an American president stay in office despite having a crippling mental disease. The New York Times headline says it all: "While Known for Being Forgetful, Reagan Was Mentally Sound in Office, Doctors Say." Since the main symptom of Alzheimers is forgetfulness, you can pretty much imagine the CYA without too much effort. I will include this graf:

In fact, going all the way back to his 1984 re-election campaign, Reagan was joking about his lack of memory. During the Iran-Contra scandal, Reagan's dottage was his very DEFENSE against his having a role in the unconstitutional behavior of his underlings. After the 1986 congressional trouncing of the GOP, Howard Baker came in to "save Reagan's Presidency" according, again, to the NYT of the day. One of his first tasks was to weigh the President's fitness for office.

Baker found nothing wrong, although Reagan surely knew problems were afoot. From the Times:

One day in his last two years as President, Mr. Reagan walked into the White House medical office, greeted Dr. Mohr and said: ''I have three things that I want to tell you today. The first is that I seem to be having a little problem with my memory. I cannot remember the other two.''

My point is this:

Twenty years after Reagan has left office, it is still 'unknown' how well his age and mental state were properly explained to the public. Further, we know today -- even if there was doubt at the time -- there is little question that someone with Alzheimer's should not have a finger on the button.

And yet, here we are with John McCain running for office, at Reagan's age going into his second term, and McCain his having secret cancer operations, hiding his more than 1,000 pages of post-2000 medical records but for a 3-hour, no photos, no phonecall secret reading on the Friday before Labor Day... and the media isn't saying boo.

From the pool report that day, WaPo's Michael Shearer presiding:

About 20 reporters-- including CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta and NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman -- were allowed to enter a room at the resort in the back of the Alchemy restaurant. We were allowed in at 7:30 and given three hours to review the records and take notes. Most reporters used computers to take notes from the three stacks of documents that were provided to each of them. The main stack, labeled "Records from Mayo Clinic, Scottsdale, Arizona, 2000-present" were the main documents and are summarized below. The other two stacks were backup documents, including handwritten notes, lab results and insurance documents. In all it was 1,173 pages, in addition to 1,500 pages distributed the last time he ran for president.

The media was willing to overlook FDR's health -- and it's hard to imagine how being in a wheelchair really effected FDR's governance. Years earlier the media ignored Woodrow Wilson's stroke for a final year in office that seems inconceivable now. The media ignored Reagan's real medical issues. Just a few years ago, the media was willing to overlook what could only be viewed as elder-abuse of Strom Thurmond.

And now, McCain is raising a spector of agism that will cow and already easily cowed media into ignoring his own medical conditions. McCain may be in perfect health, and age itself isn't a factor. But no one truly healthy at any age has more than a thousand-page, 8-year health record from a single clinic.

(And I will "go there" and say McCain's constant flip-flops of McCain's -- especially his penchant for saying "I never said..." or "I never did..." only to discover that he both said and did, on frequent occaisions, and usually in front of a camera -- does give me pause.)

The age of liberal blogs have already left its mark. We've not allowed "Macaca" to go ignored, we've made Obama's race speech viewed in at least equal effort -- if not quantity -- to those Wright clips.

It's now imperitive we don't let the media pull another Reagan on us.

Nor, let McCain use the offensensitivity of ageism to scare them into doing so.