Only a week ago, I authored a column expressing my concern about the political outlook for President Joe Biden. The danger to his reelection prospects has everything to do with his age and precious little to do with his performance in office.

Biden’s recent trip to Asia has won him plaudits internationally for establishing an alliance framework for the containment of China. He is proving to be our most effective foreign policy president since Ronald Reagan. The news on the economy has been positive, including such items as the moderation of inflation, the steady job growth, and the brisk recovery of the stock market.

Still, while history will regard Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. as an effective president, it appears, unfortunately, that the age issue may well imperil his reelection chances. The most accurate portrayal of Biden’s political status was authored by David Ignatius, the foremost national political journalist of this era, in his Washington Post column last Tuesday, as follows:

“Biden has had a remarkable string of wins. He defeated President Donald Trump in the 2020 election; he led a Democratic rebuff of Trump’s acolytes in the 2022 midterms; his Justice Department has systematically prosecuted the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection that Trump championed and, now, through special counsel Jack Smith, the department is bringing Trump himself to justice.”

“What I admire most about President Biden is that in a polarized nation, he has governed from the center out, as he promised in his victory speech. With an unexpectedly steady hand, he passed some of the most important domestic legislation in recent decades. In foreign policy, he managed the delicate balance of helping Ukraine fight Russia without getting America itself into a war. In sum, he has been a successful and effective president.”

“But I don’t think Biden and Vice President Harris should run for reelection. It’s painful to say that, given my admiration for much of what they have accomplished. But if he and Harris campaign together in 2024, I think Biden risks undoing his greatest achievement — which was stopping Trump.”

Now the question is whether the fraudulent GOP Biden impeachment inquiry will revive the president’s political fortunes. I wish it would, but I do not think so. The age issue is that powerful.

Yet the Biden impeachment inquiry will almost certainly backfire and discredit the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, resulting in the return of control in the 2024 elections to the Democrats. There is not a scintilla of evidence linking Joe Biden to the alleged misfeasance and malfeasance of his son, Hunter. The impeachment effort is nothing more than a pathetic effort of “whataboutism” to challenge the credibility of the indictments against Trump.

The inquiry has been ordered by the authoritarian leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump and executed by his spineless political puppet, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. This is the same cowardly McCarthy who stood in the House of Representatives on January 6, 2021, denounced Trump for his incitement of that day’s violent insurrection, and then met with Trump and cowered in fear of him, renouncing his previous condemnation of He Who Must be Obeyed.

In political terms, McCarthy is reminiscent of the ultimate 97-pound weakling of the legendary Charles Atlas bodybuilding ads, who lived in terror of the burly bully on the beach. His Cravenness, Kevin McCarthy lives in terror of the two leading Fascist members of the Republican delegation in the House of Representatives, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and Matt Gaetz of Florida. The famed late British Fascist leader of the 1930s, Oswald Mosley, would have included these two disgraces in his leadership coterie.

In New Jersey, the leading acolyte of Kevin McCarthy is Congressman Tom Kean, Jr. The House Speaker is the political poltroon patron of Junior Kean. Tom’s close association with the House Speaker may well cost him reelection in 2024.

You would think that Tom Kean, Jr. would do everything possible to distance himself from Kevin McCarthy, who is as popular in New Jersey as Covid 19. Instead, au contraire! Kean, Jr. has invited the House Speaker to host a beer and chili fundraiser for him in New Jersey on September 22 at a place only disclosed to prospective attendees. Heaven forbid that there should be press coverage.

When I saw the flyer for the Kean, Jr./McCarthy fundraiser (see above), I thought of the famed Doctor of

Euthanasia, Doctor Jack Kevorkian. I thought he had passed away in 2011 after serving eight years, two months relating to an arrest and conviction of second-degree homicide. The crime involved Kevorkian’s role in administering a lethal injection as part of the assisted suicide.

I had to ask myself, in jocular fashion, is Jack Kevorkian alive and well and serving as the chief strategist for the Tom Kean, Jr. 2024 reelection campaign? This fundraiser is the ultimate act of political suicide. It would take a Dr. Kevorkian to envisage such a politically self-destructive deed. The political modus operandi of Tom Kean, Jr. Is to abandon all principle and attempt to be all things to all people. As I approach Rosh HaShannah, I think of the Yiddish, the “mamaloshn,” the “mother tongue” spoken by my late, beloved grandparents. There is a Yiddish saying that perfectly describes why the cloying behavior Kean, Jr. displays towards those whose support he seeks is starting to wear thin:

“Mit eyn tokhes ken nit tantsn af tsvey khasenes.!”

Translation: “You can’t dance at two weddings with one behind!”

I have a suggestion for Tom Kean, Jr. to prove that he has even an iota of political courage: Cancel Kevin McCarthy as the host of your fundraiser and invite Mitt Romney instead.

Alan J. Steinberg of Highland Park served as regional administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush and as executive director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission.