The big buzz in Washington last week had something to do with the discovery that former President Joe Biden was old.

A couple of reporters wrote a book that quoted Biden associates claiming he showed signs of mental decline for the last several years and should not have sought reelection. The book, "Original Sin," also said Biden’s close aides kept this knowledge from the public and his cabinet. The authors, Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson, likened the Biden aides to the Soviet Politburo that kept the public in the dark.

Of course, his mental decline came to light last June during the televised debate with Donald Trump. That was when we all saw the 81-year-old incumbent appearing lost, confused, and disoriented. This appearance set the stage for his withdrawal from the presidential race, his replacement by Vice President Kamala Harris, and the election of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump. In an interview on PBS, Tapper said some sources said the Biden decline began after the death of his son Beau in 2015 and got worse after he was elected president.

Tapper told PBS the Biden aides lied about the president’s ability to lead the nation.

Was President Biden up to the awesome task of leading the country? Well, we all survived. We recovered from the COVID pandemic and our economy was pretty good.

But was it kosher for the president to hide his health condition? Tapper told us all politicians lie. "It is not a crime to lie to the American public," he said.

A quick trip through the history books shows a few examples of similar presidential conduct. President Woodrow Wilson caught the Spanish Flu in 1919, fell, hit his head, and suffered strokes that left him incapacitated. For the next 17 months, his wife and his physician hid his condition from the nation. In many cases, historians allege Wilson's wife made many of the decisions attributed to the president. President Franklin D. Roosevelt was afflicted with polio and struggled with that ailment during his four terms in office while combating the challenges of economic depression and World War II. Although his condition was well known to Washington insiders and the press corps, no one printed still photos and newsreel movies showing his condition. Although President John F. Kennedy was just 46 when he was assassinated, he had suffered from a series of debilitating ailments including severe back pain and intestinal conditions. Yet, when asked, he denied having any health problems.

A couple of years ago, in this space, I suggested the presidency is the toughest job in the world and the Republican and Democrat frontrunners were too old to serve as president. Both claimed to be in good health.

On June 14, the current president will turn 79. Those who now collect Social Security, even on their good days, are not as spry as they were at 65.

Sorry, dear readers. It is the truth. We can no longer hit a golf ball 300 yards. Heck, some of us can't remember where we stashed the golf clubs. It is now a major task when someone asks us to lift the sofa to allow them to scoot the vacuum cleaner under it to gather dust bunnies. Sometimes, we might forget why we walked downstairs in the middle of the afternoon. Sometimes, our socks don’t match. Sometimes, we can’t remember the details of a conversation from 10 minutes ago.

But, sometimes, we can remember the name of the cute girl who sat next to us in the seventh grade or the identity of the smiling blond girl who was game enough to join us in crawling into the trunk of a friend's car to sneak into a drive-in movie. And, sometimes, we might be able to recite the lyrics to the songs of the Everly Brothers, Little Richard, Judy Henske, and Gilbert & Sullivan. These are details of aging.

We all have watched as our 78-year-old president makes decisions that make us wonder about his thought processes, like when he suggested making Canada the 51st state, naming Fox News second-stringers to the cabinet, renaming the Gulf of Mexico, or instituting international tariffs that sent the world economy and the stock market into a tizzy.

Those are the times I hope he was making a bad joke, and not showing the signs of the fatal disease known as O.L.D.