“At a time in her life when many of her contemporaries are trading in their press passes for a ticket to retirement’s easy street,” writes Washington Whispers columnist Paul Beddard, “NBC’s ageless whirlwind, Andrea Mitchell, is stepping it up.”

Beddard writes of Mitchell’s schedule, which includes reporting for “Nightly News” and “Today”,  appearances on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe”, and anchoring her weekday MSNBC show “Andrea Mitchell Reports”.

“These are ridiculous hours,” she tells Beddard, “but I guess I just love what I do.”

Mitchell says she’ll continue on in TV “as long as they’ll have me.”

After all, she adds, “People, I hope, get something from the fact that there are a lot of older women on the air now, we’ve got something to offer, and we’ve learned something over the years.”