The actuarial says McCain has 8.4 “healthy” years left. He mistakenly drew the conclusion that McCain would therefore be healthy through two terms in office, thinking that eight years from now is the end of McCain’s term. That’s incorrect. The end of the term is in 8 years 5.5 months from now. Statistically, that means McCain won’t make it through two terms as a “healthy” president. By healthy, he means “the person does not require the care provided by an assisted living facility and is free of Alzheimer’s disease.”

By my back-of-the-envelope calculations, that means McCain wouldn’t even be able to complete two full terms in office. His time runs out on December 30th or so of 2016, a good three weeks before the new president would be sworn in. So that means, statistically speaking, before the end of two terms, we should expect President McCain to have to be moved to a retirement home because he’ll no longer be able to care for himself, and we should expect that he’ll already be suffering from Alzheimer’s.

This isn’t a joke, and it isn’t an attempt to mock McCain or elderly people. There’s a reason that 72 year old men aren’t professional football players or even commercial airline pilots (commercial pilots are required to retire at age 60). And there’s a reason that there’s no great uproar over the fact that senior citizens don’t work in those professions. It’s the height of political correctness to suggest that the presidency of the United States during war time requires less skill, stamina, and mental acuity than flying the friendly skies.

I’ve gotten feedback from some readers asking if McCain has had a “cognitive impairment” test. I’m told that everyone should get them as they get older, and that it’s not clear from the medical records released (you’ll recall that McCain only let a select group of reporters review his medical records in a sealed room for a few hours). I hope some reporters out there have the gumption to ask the McCain campaign for a specific answer to the question – has he recently taken a cognitive impairment test and what were the results?