If anything, the onset of senility had reduced the dangerousness of Biden’s loquacity. His press conferences are tightly controlled these days. His speeches tend to be short. He relies on a teleprompter. Still, he manages to meander off-course. Watching him articulate US policy during a crisis is like watching a drunk trying to drive a powerful racing car around a track. You know where he is meant to be going, you sort of want him to get there for everyone’s sake. It’s funny, tragic and alarming at the same.

Of course there could be strategic advantage in his geriatric ambiguity. It’s not quite the mad-man theory of diplomacy of international relations; more the gaga-theory of diplomacy. If it’s not clear whether the Commander-in-Chief has any idea what he is saying, the enemies of the free world might not know how to react to him.

But the mad-man theory — as practiced by President Richard Nixon in the Cold War and a little bit by Donald Trump in his one term — requires a leader to be unpredictable, feared because he seems capable of anything. The trouble with Biden is that his missteps are all too predictable. Everybody knows that he doesn’t know what he is doing. Or, to quote Barack Obama again: “Don’t underestimate Joe’s ability to fuck things up.”