How Biden could double his approval rating

Americans have a fairly dim view of President Joe Biden. One way he could change that: announce his retirement.

Biden, 80, seems to think concerns about his age are overblown. He’s campaigning for reelection on the premise that he’ll retain the vitality needed to do one of the world’s most demanding jobs until he’s at least 86, which would be his age at the end of a second term, in 2029.

The White House has begun emphasizing the vigorous schedule Biden keeps up, while Biden’s reelection campaign is running a TV ad touting the rigorous trip he made to war-torn Ukraine earlier this year. Voters don’t seem to be buying it. In a recent Associated Press poll, 77% of respondents said Biden is too old to run for reelection.

The debate over Biden’s vitality, or lack of it, is giving retirement a bad name. In the private sector, the average age of a CEO is 58 and many companies have a mandatory retirement age, generally between 65 and 70. There are a few prominent business leaders older than Biden, such as Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (93) and News Corp. executive chairman Rupert Murdoch (92). But those oldsters typically run empires of their own making, which gives them the privilege of sticking around for as long for as they choose.

Biden seems to think it would be some kind of failure to leave the White House after one term. But there could be a nobler way of looking at it. The Washington…