By Sniffles
"What a lot you know," young Sarah Layton says to Lady Ethel Manners in the second novel of Paul Scott's Raj Quartet (which PBS viewers know better as The Jewel in the Crown).
Lady Manners, an old hand at British-Indian politics and statesmanship, laughs. "It's one of the few advantages of old age, to be a repository of bits and pieces of casual information that sometimes come in useful," she says. "I didn't really mean that," Sarah replies. "I meant know, as distinct from remember."
The same could be said of Joseph R. Biden, Jr. He looks like a total badass who's having a terrific time in this photo. But what a lot he knows.
We're blogging about this again because with tomorrow officially marking 46's first four months, journalists are starting to notice it. "Biden is not only the oldest US President but arguably the most well-prepared," reports The Los Angeles Times. "In dealing with Congress, he draws on the experience of 36 years in the Senate...Biden entered office having years-long relationships with numerous members of Congress, including Republicans, a deep understanding of how government works and the humbling experience of past defeats."
Biden has confidence born of experience. Even with a razor-thin Democratic Senate majority that could, God forbid, vanish with one fatal COVID case or heart attack, he keeps the Republicans floundering. He's proposed $6 trillion — that's trillion, with a "t" — for his New New Deal, and the GOP can only talk about culture-war crap and bend its knee to the soon-to-be-indicted-and-maybe-jailed Florida mobster who used to live in the White House.
"When Sarah said 'What a lot you know,' she made it sound like a state of grace," Lady Manners observes a few paragraphs on. We cats don't know if the country is in a state of grace yet, but it sure is in a state of Biden. That makes us PURR.
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