This Old Man IN 1965, WHEN JOE BIDEN was 22, still seven years away from being elected the youngest senator in the country, Bob Dylan wrote, “Even the president of the United States sometimes must have to stand naked.” Now, nearly threescore later, the prophecy appeared to be fulfilling as Biden stood onstage in Atlanta, as white as a sheet, as frozen as an oil painting, rummaging through frayed neural pathways for the words, any words, to escape the linguistic corner into which he’d stumbled.
Words! Where were the words? Detoured in the transition, stuck to the tip of his tongue under a gob of Poligrip? How long did it last, two seconds, three? It might have been forever: Scranton Joe, the workingman’s friend, in stop motion on one-half of…
