Earlier today the N.Y. Times posted an article about Joe Biden’s rhetorical slip-ups, written by Katie Glueck and Jonathan Martin and titled “Joe Biden Knows He Says the Wrong Thing.”

It includes the following passage: “Some of [Biden’s] advisers said in interviews that they were privately nervous that his recent gaffe spree would become cemented into the larger narrative of the presidential race. They also say that Mr. Biden faces an unfair double standard.”

Right away “gaffe spree” rang a bell. I’d heard it but couldn’t place it. Then it hit me: a 1956 British war film called Pursuit of the Graf Spee (aka Battle of the River Plate). The Times editors never would have called the article “Pursuit of the Gaffe Spree,” but it could have been called that since Glueck and Martin were pursuing a story about the ramifications of Biden’s verbal blunders.

Excerpt: “Yet there is a real political risk for Mr. Biden. Some party activists have already been worried that, at 76, he may be too old to go toe-to-toe with Mr. Trump, who is 73, and win. If the accumulation of verbal missteps continues, some Democrats say, it will eventually sow doubts about what many primary voters believe is Mr. Biden’s biggest strength, [which is] that he is best positioned to beat Mr. Trump.”