‘You look very young’: Biden’s age under scrutiny in Vietnam

AFP | Hanoi

The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com

“You haven’t aged a day.” Joe Biden, 80, couldn’t help laughing as he was complimented by Vietnam’s 79-year-old Communist Party leader during a visit to Hanoi.

However, the humorous aside was at odds with the constant criticism from home about his advancing years as he campaigns for a second term.

If he is re-elected next year, the Democrat would remain in the White House until the age of 86, a prospect that does not sit well with Americans. Biden’s age is a major handicap in the polls, despite the White House’s efforts to boast about his economic, social and diplomatic successes.

Some 73 percent of voters are concerned about his physical and mental competence, while 76 percent doubt his ability to last through a second term in office, according to a poll published by CNN on Thursday.

That didn’t stop Nguyen Phu Trong, Vietnam’s most powerful leader, from telling the president “he looked better than ever”. “I think you look very young, handsome... you have beautiful white hair,” Trong said.

But journalists who follow the US president have noted the long weekends with his family and the little protocol adjustments he makes. Public radio station NPR, for example, devoted an entire article to the number of steps the octogenarian climbs to board his plane.

Air Force One has two staircases. American presidents generally take the longer of the two, which takes them to the top of the aircraft, with its excellent vantage point. But Biden increasingly uses another staircase, shorter and more stable, which is usually used only in bad weather.