USA: Bush Broods About His Age As He Hits 60

WASHINGTON (San Francisco Chronicle), July 6, 2006: Happy Birthday, Mr.President! Let us now peek into the psyche of America's most powerful Baby Boomer, George W. Bush. He is not given to self-analysis -- "George is not an overly introspective person," his wife, Laura, once said with dry understatement -- but Bush turns 60 today, and like most men hitting that milestone, he can't seem to get the thought off his mind. Here is the president in June at a community college in Omaha, Neb., trying to convince himself that turning 60 is no big deal: "I'm not supposed to talk about myself, but in a month I'm turning 60. For you youngsters, I want to tell you something. When I was your age, I thought 60 was really old. It's all in your mind. It's not that old; it really isn't." And here is Bush in the Rose Garden a few weeks ago, having just returned from a surprise trip to Baghdad, when asked how he was feeling: "I'm doing all right. A little jet-lagged, as I'm sure you can imagine -- nearly 60." Could it be that Bush, with his enviably low heart rate and penchant for two-hour mountain bike rides that exhaust Secret Service agents half his age, is worried about getting old? Is that why the president, so mindful of proper attire that he demands a coat and tie in the Oval Office even on weekends, wore a decidedly youthful red-and-white Hawaiian shirt to his two-days-early birthday dinner in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday night? If he is worried about getting old, his friends say, Bush certainly has not confessed it to them, though they recognize the big 6-0 could be a touchy subject. Bush brought along four friends on Air Force One for a trip to Fort Bragg, N.C., on Tuesday; all were mum about the impending birthday, refusing to disclose even the teeniest detail of the party or gifts. Bush, having been born in 1946, is on the leading edge of the Baby Boom (as is former President Bill Clinton, who also turns 60 this summer), and experts in aging say he is setting a fine example for his peers. And though he does seem to have aged a bit in office -- his hair is a little grayer; his knees gave out, so he switched from running to biking -- Bush has not had the precipitous physical decline of some of his predecessors. The exercise certainly helps. Dr. Kenneth Cooper, a Dallas fitness expert who is one of the president's doctors, said Bush has "an amazing aerobic capacity"; his performance on treadmill stress tests consistently puts him in the top 1 percent of men his age. It doesn't hurt that Bush comes from healthy stock. The Bushes do not go gently into old age; the first President George Bush went skydiving to celebrate his 80th birthday two years ago. A recent AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) study of people turning 60 found that nearly 77 percent of them said they were satisfied with their lives overall, and Bush certainly seems in step with his peers. If most people at 60 are looking back at their best days, Bush, who says he turned his life around when he quit drinking at age 40, gives the impression that he is living them. "I think this is a marker in his life," said Mark McKinnon, who was Bush's media strategist for both of his presidential campaigns. "And I think like a lot of us who had some hard-living chapters, we're kind of surprised that we're here and that our bodies have held up. I think maybe there's a piece of that, that here he is 20 years later and much healthier than he was at 40." So the president at 60 is hardly pulling the covers over his head. But neither was he interested in a showy celebration. Bush's birthday party Tuesday was a low-key affair -- a buffet dinner of fried chicken, Cajun shrimp, potato salad and roasted corn, plus an oversize three-tiered chocolate cake. His actual birthday today will be business as usual. Bush will meet with the prime minister of Canada, then fly to Chicago, where the most powerful Baby Boomer (and Republican) in America will spend the evening he turns 60 having dinner with civic leaders and Mayor Richard Daley -- a Democrat. By Sheryl Gay Stolberg, New York Times © 2006 San Francisco Chronicle