As U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin told reporters Wednesday of his intention not to run for reelection, he clearly was worried that his own exit at the age of 80 would be taken as a rallying cry for the Democratic Party’s myriad other oldsters to hang it up already.

In the wake of the Joe Biden disaster, when Democrats failed to see Biden’s age-related political demise staring them in the face, many younger Democrats have been calling for a new generation of leaders capable of fighting, and defeating, the chaotic agenda of President Donald Trump and his allies.

But Durbin made clear that was not his intent, pointing out the ongoing vitality of the likes of Chuck Grassley (aged 91) and Bernie Sanders (aged 83), two senators on the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum.

Durbin is, of course, correct: People’s cognitive abilities are not defined merely by a number. But the tricky part of this whole retirement business is that some politicians also experience a decline in judgment when it comes to the very thing that matters most: their own abilities, which they know better than anyone else.

Deciding when to leave the stage is a tricky business in any profession, not least because those dependent on you for their own jobs, or even those genuinely grateful, often are reluctant to tell you the truth. Look at what happened with Biden. As soon as he stepped aside, some of the very journalists who had insisted he was doing fine then started publishing books insisting they had known the opposite, all along.

Whether it’s fair to say an 80-year-old is still at the top of his cognitive game is open to question but in the case of Durbin, who spoke with this board many times after first entering the Senate in 1996, and debated his opponents in front of us, cognitive matters are buoyed by decades of experience and the man’s fundamentally decent nature.

Take what he said to us about Democratic infighting in 2007: “I received a letter about two months ago from a group in Chicago asking me if I would go to Springfield and mediate their difficulties. I said I’d rather go to Iraq — and I meant it. I’m very disappointed as a Democrat that it has reached this point. I cannot explain it other than there are personal elements involved here that have unfortunately transcended the real issues and there is not a good spirit of cooperation and compromise.”

The metaphor was apt, for Durbin did then go to Iraq. When we asked him back then about how America should resolve the embers of what time has proven to be a misadventure, he said, “You know, ‘stay the course,’ ‘gut it out,’ ‘don’t cut and run,’ ‘we’re waiting for victory,’ sounds great at a convention of veterans. But the bottom line is these soldiers have given more than most should ever be asked.”

Indeed. But Durbin was also not for a chaotic withdrawal: “Some of my friends say, ‘Leave tomorrow. Get everybody out tomorrow if you can.’ It’s not only physically impossible, I don’t think it’s politically wise. We made a mess getting into this war; we shouldn’t make a mess getting out.”

That’s a good indicator both of Durbin’s integrity and general reluctance to score cheap political points that come with human costs.

During his tenure, he has had a rich understanding of the need for comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform, as yet unrealized. His early focus on providing a pathway to legal residency and citizenship for the immigrants lacking permanent legal status, who were brought to this country as children through no fault of their own, came to be one of the few potential compromises in the fraught matter of immigration; this board has long supported help for these immigrants who grew up in America and now deserve the chance to thrive here.

Durbin helped brand them as the Dreamers, a definition that Trump has acknowledged as persuasive and might yet provide them with long-term protection. As it should.

But in terms of our daily lives, the biggest Durbin achievement surely was in the area of tobacco legislation. There, he both surfed and harnessed a great wave as a reluctant America finally came to see the health dangers of cigarettes and other products and slowly but surely transitioned to a mostly smoke-free society, at least in public spaces. Big Tobacco was a powerful adversary, but Durbin and his bipartisan allies prevailed.

At least in part, you have Durbin to thank for no longer having to cover your nose on an “L” train or cough and splutter on a public bus. No more do we have swirls of smoke spiraling in a fuselage at 30,000 feet, as if an airplane’s so-called “smoking section” had an invisible wall from the rest of us.

Durbin’s work there saved lives in a far more direct way than most politicians ever manage.

We congratulate the distinguished senator from Illinois on his well-deserved retirement and look forward to the battles to replace him.

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