The Unbearable Lightness of Biden

“For decades, there was a lightness about Joe Biden—a springy, mischievous energy that was hard not to like, even if it allowed some people to classify him as a lightweight. For better and worse, he is a more solemn figure now. His voice is thin and clotted, and his gestures have slowed, but, in our conversation, his mind seemed unchanged. He never bungled a name or a date. At one point, he pulled out a white notecard inscribed with some of Trump’s most alarming comments: his threat to terminate the Constitution, his casual talk of being a dictator on ‘Day One,’ his description of immigrants as ‘poisoning the blood of our country.’ Biden tossed the list on his desk and gave a look of disbelief. ‘What the hell!’ he said. ‘If you and I had sat down ten years ago and I said a President is going to say those things, you would have looked at me like, ‘Biden, you’ve lost your senses.'” Evan Osnos in The New Yorker: Joe Biden’s Last Campaign. “The biggest bet of all is that good governing actually can get you reëlected in 2024, when all of the forces seem to be arrayed against it.” (That bet doesn’t sound like a sure thing these days…)