That line comes from a distinguished NYU prof discussing our esteemed new Supreme nominee John Roberts on Charlie Rose last night.

Youth? The man is fifty years old.

You know you've got a problem when an institution has grown so elderly that people toss around words like youth to describe a fifty-year-old without a second thought, and without anyone batting an eye when they do.

Same problem we discussed about the election of "his supreme holiness" a few months back. (And closely related to underlying problems about divorce and pre-marital sex that we have refused to acknoledge, much less address.)

Medical progress has driven the average age sky high in past century. That's great news for most of us, but it fundamentally changes the composition of institutions where the participants last till death. Instead of justices--or popes--ranging from, say, 40-60, we tend toward groups ranging 60-80.

At the moment, we've got Clarence Thomas at a youthful 57, and the other nine ranging from late 60s to their 80s.

I have no problem with old people on the court, even very old people on the court--or in the papacy. Advanced age brings advanced experience and sometimes advanced wisdom. I have a big problem with nearly all the court being old people, and much of it very old.

The distance between the average age of them and the average age of the people they are deciding for grows wider every year. It makes a difference. For a couple big reasons.

First, they're often further removed from the experiences they're deciding upon. On some cases this is no issue, but if they're deciding issues concerning college kids or young parents--much less children--or soldiers or a host of different classes, 20, 30, 50 even 70 years may have gone by since they were in that position. And we know how so many of us  conveniently forget what it was really like when we faced the dilemma.

The other reason is cultural. The culture changing more and more rapidly, yet the delay for the changed people to reach the court is growing longer and longer.

Eight of the current nine are over 65. That means eight of them came of age in the freaking 1950s! They were raised, they went to college, they formed many of their lasting impressions about the world in an age where women were expected to be housewives and defer to their husbands, blacks were expected to ride in the back and not pollute our white drinking fountains, gays were in the closet and getting arrested. We were a long way from Vietnam or Woodstock or Watergate. Rock music even invented in time for most of their high school dances.

People coming of age in their 20s now grew up in a radically different world, with radically different worldviews than these people. Even people in their 30s and 40s came from a significantly different world.

The gap is growing wider.

Too wide. It's time to address it.

And it's an easy fix. Just limit the term: either by age or by number of years served.

With the latter, we can still have very old people represented if that's what a particular president and Senate want. If it's a 20-year term, appoint a 60-year-old and he can serve till 80. Or go older if you like. Appoint a 40-year-old and he'll max out at 60, and he'll keep the average lower the whole time.

There are lots of choices, and they're all pretty easy. We just have to start by recognizing that we have a the problem.