Back with a Bullet

It seemed as if Mark Steyn took a hiatus from regular punditry, and it's good to have him back:

By contrast, Senator Biden was glib and fluent and in command of the facts — if by "in command of the facts" you mean "talks complete blithering balderdash and hogwash." He flatly declared that Obama never said he would meet Ahmadinejad without preconditions. But, on Debate Night, the official Obama website was still boasting that he would meet Ahmadinejad "without preconditions". He said America spends more in a month in Iraq than it's spent in seven years in Afghanistan. Er, America has spent over $700 billion in Afghanistan since 2001. It's spending about $10 billion a month in Iraq. But no matter. To demonstrate his command of the "facts", Senator Biden sportingly offered up his own instant replays...

When Regular Joe Six-Pack Bluecollar Biden tried to match her on the Main Street cred, it rang slightly wacky. "Look," he said, "All you have to do is go down Union Street with me in Wilmington or go to Katie's Restaurant or walk into Home Depot with me, where I spend a lot of time." Why? Is he moonlighting as a checkout clerk on the evening shift? Or is he stalking that nice lady in Lighting Fixtures? As for Katie's Restaurant, ah, I'm sure it was grand but apparently it closed in 1990. In the Diner of the Mind, the refills are endless and Senator Joe is sitting shootin' the breeze over a cuppa joe with a couple other regular joes on adjoining stools while Betty-Jo, the sassy waitress who's tough as nails but with a heart of gold, says Ol' Joe, the short-order cook who's doing his Sloppy Joes just the way the Senator likes 'em, really appreciates the way that, despite 78 years in Washington, Joe Biden is still just the same regular Joe Six-Pack he was when he and Norman Rockwell first came in for a sarsaparilla all those years ago. But, alas, while he was jetting off for one-to-one talks with the Deputy Tourism Minister of Waziristan, the old neighborhood changed.