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“The seniority that makes [Senator Joe] Biden so knowledgeable on foreign policy — a conversation with him is always instructive — is also what cripples. He has been in the Senate since 1973 and suffers, as nearly all senators do sooner or later, from the conviction that he and his colleagues are the center of the world. After all, no one — with the possible exception of family members — ever tells a senator to shut up. They are surrounded by fawning staff and generally treated as minor deities. They lose perspective, which is why, now that you’ve asked, they talk and talk at these hearings. They are convinced the world is watching. Actually, it’s only a half a dozen shut-ins on C-SPAN — and, of course, the nearly catatonic press corps. Everyone else is playing computer solitaire.” Richard Cohen