This is what you get for having 77-year-old politicians

'Key Republicans are gently (or not gently enough) trying to dissuade [Senator Roland] Bunning from seeking re-election in 2010 out of concern that his paltry fund-raising, declining approval ratings and irascible conduct have made him something between vulnerable and unelectable.

But in recent weeks, Mr. Bunning has shown no sign of stepping aside and delivered a string of incendiary pronouncements that have fed an impression that he is, to go with a baseball metaphor, a bit of a screwball.

He declared in a speech last month that the cancer-stricken Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be dead in nine months. (He then apologized in a statement that twice misspelled her name.) He threatened to sue the National Republican Senatorial Committee if it backed a primary challenger. And he hinted at a Capitol Hill fund-raiser last week that he was so mad at some in his party that he might just quit and let Kentucky’s Democratic governor pick his successor.

The senator later denied saying this, but veteran Bunning-watchers said it was impossible to know exactly what he had in mind'

- New York Times, 5 March 2009