While discussing The Huffington Post's new hub for baby boomers on Morning Joe, the panel of Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough, Arianna Huffington, Rita Wilson and Mike Barnicle basically turned the conversation into one big sales pitch for raising the retirement age to infinity.
While I think it's wonderful that Brzezinski is lucky enough to have both parents still apparently, happily working well into their eighties and that Wilson's mother who's approaching ninety is still doing well and independent, listening to all of them talk here left little doubt in my mind that all of them are certainly living in a different world than your average American out there who is doing any kind of physical labor for a living.
And I'm sorry but using the example of Andy Rooney who just retired from his one day a week gig at 60 Minutes giving a few minute opinion piece at the end of the show as an example of someone who's still “working” into their nineties is just ridiculous. Most Americans would consider what Rooney got paid to do for a living or what Brzezinski's father does jetting around the world more like a vacation than anything you could rightfully describe as “work.”
If Scarborough and Brzezinski think working into your old age is so great, I'd welcome her to come spend a little time along with her parents waiting on a few tables, or spending some time on a factory floor on an off shift, or maybe out digging some ditches with a construction crew, or perhaps answering an emergency call-out for some hot, filthy job at 3am in the morning. I have a feeling they'd reconsider their position after an hour or so if they lasted that long.
