Biden from a distance

Times:

A few years ago, at one of those innumerable Washington occasions where chummy journalists and politicians come together to celebrate each other’s ineffable goodness, the guest of honour, some superannuated media favourite, was being ribbed about how long he had been in public life.

“He’s been in Washington so long,” said the after-dinner speaker, “that he can remember when Joe Biden didn’t have hair.”

It was, of course, a quip about the Delaware senator’s now famous and highly successful hair transplant that transformed him from a prematurely balding fortysomething to the white-mane-flowing senatorial grandee he has become. But it was also, more subtly, a reminder of just how long Senator Biden himself has been around, a signal of what an immovable fixture on the Washington scene he represents.

There are many things that Barack Obama’s new vice-presidential running-mate stands for – working-class values and lifestyle, exemplified by a daily commute to Washington from his plain home in Delaware; a depth of experience in foreign policy and legal matters; a serious, unrelenting and impassioned dedication to the sound of his own voice. But change is certainly not one of them.

He has been in the US senate since Richard Nixon was President....

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He is a man who likes to hear himself talk and does it at length in a stream of consciousness that has an uneven flow from subject to subject. He has said so many things that the challenge for the Republicans is in finding enough time to use his criticism of Obama and his praise of McCain.