What, Was He Just Biden His Time?

Hello. Welcome to the Weekend Gene Pool Gene Poll. I’ve been waiting to do this poll for weeks now, waiting on some resuscitative event that might even momentarily stem the incessant, insipid, drumbeat of media-abetted handwringing and tooth gnashing over Joe Biden’s age, which seems to have overwhelmed all reason and decency, drowning facts in a frenzy of fear and in the face of fraudulence, plus a whole lot of other f-words.

Now we have that CPR, at least for the moment. It was delivered — literally delivered — by Biden himself, at a microphone. That was one hell of a State of the Union: fierce, feisty, fulminating, filled with fiery fury. At one point Biden used the very wording of Roe v. Wade, issued by a long-ago compassionate Supreme Court, to saucily spank the canonical conservative cruelty of the current one, which happened to be seated in the room just a few feet away. Time and again, Biden framed the upcoming election in Manichaean terms that seemed appropriate — even dead on. He was gaffe-less. He seemed almost …. youthful. Joltin’ Joe may be back at bat.

Then we got to watch some beatifically smiling, incongruously angry young lady named Katie Britt deliver the GOP rebuttal from her … kitchen. No, she wasn’t wearing an apron, but might well have been. Her episodic anger seemed summoned up and briefly pasted on to illustrate those occasional stampy-stamp vexing moments, then returning quickly to Cyborg Resting Mode, with an ersatz smile that could be pitching Downy® April Fresh Liquid fabric softener.

The party likely chose Britt because at 42 she is the youngest Republican female U.S. senator ever, in contrast to Biden, who is apparently a barely re-animated corpse and who, as the senator noted, has been a politician longer than she has been alive and who, she says, is “out of touch.” Sen. Britt presented herself as a woman of the people, Mrs. Plain Ordinary American. Mrs. Plain Ordinary American is married to Mr. Plain Ordinary American, who happens to be six foot eight and 300 pounds, a former tackle for The New England Patriots. Mr. and Mrs. Plain Ordinary American have a son named “Ridgeway.”

But I digress. My point is, let’s seize the moment, right now, when the tone of public discourse over Biden’s age seems momentarily less panic-driven. We must do it even before I start a new paragraph (who knows how long before the Idiot Wind returns?). This is a yes-no question, no weaseling, based on your current assessment of the race and your best guess or gut. Not your fondest hopes or greatest fears — what you think will most likely happen. If you are 50.1 percent persuaded on the more likely outcome, that is your answer.

Okay, good. For discussion on Tuesday, please send your thoughts, ad hominem attacks, on this subject to this titian-tinted button.

There is a second question today, for consideration on Tuesday. It has nothing to do with Trump or Biden, I think.

When i was about seven years old, my Ma asked me what I wanted to do for a living. I thought real hard, and said that I couldn’t decide between two jobs: A heart surgeon, or a cashier at Olinsky’s. Olinsky’s was my favorite deli in the Bronx. They had great sour pickles that the staff got to fish out of a barrel with their hands.

I didn’t understand why my ma was laughing so hard, and she never really explained it to me.

Later, at 13 or so, after bowling a totally flukish 235 game, I decided I wanted to join the PBA tour and travel the country and make a fortune and have floozies fall in lust with me. This lasted until my first day visiting a teenage league and discovered it was made up of all the neighborhood dweebs, the snot-gobblers, the nosepickers, the jiggle-bellies, the puddinheads, the milksops, the schleppers and the schlemiels, none of whom would likely get laid, ever. The pretty successful pro bowler today averages $45,000 a year. So. Good on me for walking away.

That’s today’s second question: What is a career you once considered — as a kid or at any later point in life — but didn’t embark on, or didn’t stick with, for better or worse? Funny is good. Ironic is good. Explain it artfully, like paintings during the Venetian Renaissance:

Also, if you see your way clear, you can upgrade your subscription to “paid.” I’m making roughly what today’s pretty successful pro bowler makes.