New York Times and Washington Post BOTH run op-eds branding Biden, 80, too old for office with NYT raising specter of him dying before retiring like Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The New York Times and Washington Post published opinion pieces Wednesday calling 80-year-old President Joe Biden too old to run for re-election in 2024.

It comes as Biden faces an impeachment inquiry and recent polls show most view the president as too far gone to serve again.

Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist for liberal timewrote an article titled “2024’s Field of Nightmares”, a reference to the 1989 film Field of Dreams.

He said that while his concerns about Biden boiled down to run-of-the-mill policy disagreements during his first term, Democrats were playing with fire by allowing the oldest president in American history to run again.

The two risks of a new Biden candidacy, according to Douthat: “the high stakes of the next election, in which a health crisis or simply more slip-ups could be what brings Trump back to the White House, and the different stakes but also substantial” for another four-year term.

While Douthat argued that, as with Ronald Reagan’s second term — long rumored to have been served while the president was in decline — Biden could “limp to another victory,” he considers the current political era as revealing.

He likened it to liberals praying that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg might live long enough to see a Democrat replace her, only to see her die weeks before the election, with Trump able to appoint another justice to the Supreme Court.

‘TThe Trump era has been one of those periods when providence or destiny avenges hubris more quickly than usual – where the long-standing freedom enjoyed by American parties and leaders, by virtue of our power and pre-eminence, to circumvent our weak points and errors have been considerably reduced,” he said.

David Ignatius wrote a similar column in the newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos. Washington Post with a more direct headline: “President Biden should not run again in 2024.”

Ignatius largely praises Biden’s early years in office, saying the Democrat has “governed from the center out” and done a good job on foreign policy in supporting Ukraine.

However, he says that not only Biden, but also Vice President Kamala Harris, should avoid running in 2024.

“It’s painful to say this, given my admiration for much of what they accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks destroying his greatest achievement: stopping Trump.

He cited disastrous poll numbers for Biden in terms of approval ratings and public opinion of his age.

For Harris, he cited “the simple fact is that she has failed to gain traction in the country or even within her own party.”

He even suggested Biden replace Harris on the ticket with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass or Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

“Right now, there is no clear alternative to Biden – no blatantly obvious replacement waiting in the wings. This could be decisive for Biden, since there is apparently no one else. But perhaps he will trust democracy to discover new leadership “in the arena”.

Although Biden, 80, is only three years older than Donald Trump, 77, there is a 26% margin between those who think Biden is too old and those who think the ex-president is too old to serve another term.

A new Wall Street Journal poll taken Aug. 24-30 and released Monday, shows that only 36% of 1,500 voters surveyed think Biden is mentally fit for office, while 46% think Trump is mentally competent for the job.

The latest shows that 75% of voters think Biden is too old, compared to just 47% who think the same about Trump.

Those who think Biden is too old include two-thirds of Democrats.

Author Franklin Foer, who wrote a biography about Biden’s first two years in office, said Sunday he wouldn’t be “totally shocked” if the president ended up dropping out of the race before the end of the year.

When NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd asked him Sunday how he would react if Biden decided not to finalize his 2024 bid, Foer said, “That would be a surprise to me.” But it wouldn’t be a complete surprise.

The author who had “unprecedented access” to Biden and his inner circle, according to publisher Penguin Random House, noted that “one of the main insecurities” of the president “is that he doesn’t want to be seen like stupid.”

Biden, 80, announced his bid for a second term with Vice President Kamala Harris in late April — but questions emerged last year about whether the president is too old or too unfit to serve four more years .

Only 40% of respondents in the WSJ poll say Biden has a strong record of accomplishments. But 51% say the same about Trump’s first term.

Infrastructure is the only policy area where American voters approve of Biden’s job performance. At the same time, their disapproval outweighs their approval in areas such as the economy, inflation and the cost of living, border security, China and the war in Ukraine.

Age has become a central theme in the 2024 presidential race, with candidate Nikki Haley proposing earlier this year that there should be an age limit on those who can run for the White House. She said 75 would be a good ceiling.