““( Does the GOP have to be a nursing home for senile hacks? )”
Both parties. Byrd was the most well-known case. Daniel Inouye and Frank Lautenberg are two Democrat senators in their 80s.
“Someone’s got to be the senile Republican, now that Strom Thurmond’s pushing up daisies.”
Thurmond did have the dignity to resign at the end, and on the Democrat side we see that Daniel Akaka is retiring.
In many ways, the very best Democrat in either house was not fit to change Strom Thurmond’s Depends. He was a segregationist, but an implacable foe of lynch mobs. Robert Byrd recruited klansmen, and once wrote to a high Klan official that he’d rather see the US flag trampled in the dust than permit the military to be integrated. Strom on the worst day of his life never would have said such a thing. But hey. As you say, he got senile and retired. McCain is getting worse and worse, but he’s like the Energiser Bunny with his foot in his mouth. He keeps going and going and going and going...