Stop saying that Joe Biden is too old to be president, he's always been a goof machine

Some voters at the Democratic party base said former Vice President Joe Biden, the vice president of their 2020 presidential party, was too old and was losing him. Verbal blunders, broken responses, his bloody eye during CNN's appearance – if Biden is not too old now, would he be too old in nine years to age 85 to finish his second term?

The thing is, Biden does not make any more blunders as he was used to. His political career has been full. Biden recently claimed that it was "foolish" that we have not banned magazines containing more than one bullet. During his visit to Dartmouth last month, Biden said, "I will not go crazy," which we will decide for you, Mr. Vice President. Confounding New Hampshire with Vermont can happen to anyone. It's just that a presidential candidate, even at the primaries, has an employee whose job is, just before the speech or visit, to remind the politician exactly where he is – city, state and, if necessary, country and century.

The list of gaffes is interesting, but not quite recent. In his 2008 campaign (you know, the one where he won the vice president's Spit Warm Spit prize), he said that Hillary Clinton would better candidate and performer than he would. He asked a paralyzed senator to get up from his wheelchair, stand up and receive the applause of the crowd. He said that Obama was the first "traditional African-American articulate, bright and clean".

Biden stumble upon his own language is simply not a new thing. So, why do so many? Part of that is simply that the other candidates and their supporters want to find something, no matter what, to stab him in the back. This is essential: to ensure that other candidates fail to pass serenely in the pack and seize the brass ring of the application.

But there is more than that this time, too. Biden, when he occupies a political or other position, is centrist. The activists of the Democratic Party, the only people really interested at this stage, are no longer centrist. They want to be at least radically progressive. It is not certain that the rest of the country is so fond of socialism, but we have not counted yet and we will not do it before the elections.

This time, it's not only the personal fight against ambition against Biden, there is also this ideological impulse.

That's why people talk more often about Biden's blunders. Not because they are more numerous, nor because they are worse, simply because there is more incentive to do something about it.

This is really not new at all. A long time ago, in 1987, Biden's inaugural race at the nomination had derailed when he had plagiarized the speech of British politician Neil Kinnock. Stealing excerpts from a speech by someone who's been steamed by Maggie Thatcher may not be a mistake, but to be honest, she tended to have this effect on the opposition. But of someone who then lost to John Major?

I think people are more than a little unfair to Biden at the moment. This is really not true that he is too old and that he is losing it. Joe's problem is that he never had it in the first place.

Tim Worstall (@worstall) is a contributor to Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior member of the Adam Smith Institute. You can read all his plays at the Continental Telegraph.