Not just almost word for word but the very (for him fake) scenario.

Britain’s Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock had talked about his coal miner ancestors. “Why am I the first Kinnock in a thousand generations to be able to get to university…Was it because all our predecessors were thick? . . . Those people who could sing and play and recite and write poetry? . . . Those people who could work eight hours underground and then come up and play football?”

Mr. Biden had stolen the lines: “Why is it that Joe Biden is the first in his family ever to go to a university? . . . Is it because I’m the first Biden in a thousand generations to get a college and a graduate degree? That I was smarter than the rest? Those same people who read poetry and wrote poetry and taught me how to sing verse? Is it because…

Good old Joe getting older, faster.

There’s a bad joke about a music scholar who visits Beethoven’s grave in Vienna. As he nears, he hears the Ninth Symphony being played backward. He turns to the cemetery caretaker and asks, “What’s that strange music?” The caretaker answers, “Oh, that’s just Beethoven de-composing.”

That joke pops into my mind every time I see photos of Joe Biden or hear him speak. On the one hand, Biden is holding up better than I would have expected a few months ago. On the other hand, no one can deny that the man is aging with incredible speed.

(Thank you, Andrea Widburg.)

Man on Dan & Amy this morning considers it an even bet that if Joe wins he will not be sworn in at the inauguration.