It takes a lot of chutzpah for a 76 year old who is sounding increasingly like Grandpa Simpson to make an old people joke. Or maybe it is just a lack of self-awareness. Even worse, it wasn’t funny, even if the audience of labor union stooges laughed. The Sacramento Bee reports:

Gov. Jerry Brown has a new argument for high-speed rail: Get senior citizens off the road.

"There's a lot of old people who shouldn't be driving," the Democratic governor joked at a dinner hosted by labor leaders in Sacramento on Monday night. "They should be sitting in a nice train car working on their iPad, having a martini."

I have a much cheaper proposal: let’s retire Jerry, instead of him running for re-election (as he is doing), and buy him a lifetime pass on the French TGV rail system. I’d even chip in for a few martinis.

Meanwhile, the California voters have turned against the colossal wasteful project, and even Brown’s own lieutenant governor has recognized the folly.