A man turns 60 once in his lifetime. Sixty! The diamond anniversary. A bright and shiny adornment for any man’s crown. Making it that far is something to be proud of. Wouldn’t it be nice to celebrate with all those you’ve loved along the way? But one thing that might dash those dreams is optics, the one trip wire you can never age out of if you are a politician of some note.
Proof? Look no further than everyone’s favorite 21st-century prez, Barack Obama, who, various news outlets reported Wednesday, has scaled back his 60th birthday party after criticism that a big, huge party might not be the best look right now. The delta variant continues to work its way through our system, and so, as some conservatives and various people on Twitter have said, such a celebratory show might strike the wrong chord, especially considering the bash would be on Martha’s Vineyard, just a hop and a skip to Provincetown, Massachusetts, site of an earlier summer outbreak. (For what it’s worth, which should be a lot, those sickened in said outbreak who were vaccinated seem to have escaped COVID’s most severe consequences. The vaccines, in other words, do what they were designed to do.)
Sure, a former president throwing a vaccinated birthday bash is not abandoning one’s state during not one but two of its most serious recent crises (a.k.a. the Ted Cruz look). It’s not “filling one’s staff with family members who have failed upward their whole life” levels of bad optics (a.k.a. the You Know Who lewk). But optics are optics, and 60-year-olds are not immune to that. There is no vaccination for bad-faith outcries from some guys.
Now one thing about turning 60 is that surely you know by now how to take it on the chin. You don‘t need to have the whole elementary-school class over to your party. You can cut the guest list. You’ll survive, of course. In fact you might, maybe—not jinxing it here—make it to 70, when you can do this all over again sans, God willing, a global pandemic. You will have your platinum jubilee.
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