It’s too bad Thomas Jefferson isn’t around.

Otherwise, he could have commented on Joe Biden’s attempt to tie himself to General George Washington and the winter of 1777-1778 when he and his cold and hungry Continental Army fought for survival at Valley Forge.

Jefferson, who was a lifelong friend of Washington’s before a late falling out, could have turned to Biden and said, “Joe, I served with George Washington. I knew George Washington. George Washington was a friend of mine. Joe, you are no George Washington.”

That’s paraphrasing the lines delivered by the late Texas Sen. Lloyd Bentsen, Democrat Michael Dukakis’ 1988 presidential running mate.

They came during Bentsen’s television debate with Republican Sen. Dan Quayle, who was George H. W. Bush’s candidate for vice president.

Quayle, 41, in response to critics of his relative youth and inexperience, said he had as much experience in Congress that John F. Kennedy had when Kennedy ran for president in 1960. President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

Bentsen, 67, an old political warhorse, replied with the controlled indignity only an old political pro could have, and said, “Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy.”

Bentsen’s words blew a chagrined Quayle out of the water. Bentsen won the debate over a clearly embarrassed Quayle.

Nevertheless, Bush and Quayle went on to defeat Dukakis and Bentsen in the 1988 presidential election.

And although Bentsen died in 2006, his lines are alive and well.

They come to mind in the wake of Biden’s absurd remarks in his first campaign speech comparing his plans to seek re-election — and “defend” democracy — to Washington’s heroic efforts to keep his army alive through a harsh winter and avoid being wiped out by the British.

Washington, who later became the first president of the newly formed United States, was 46 years old when he led his small army across the icy Delaware River for a successful attack on 1,400 Hessian soldiers on the New Jersey side of the river. They were fighting for King George and the British.

It was the first American victory, small as it was, after months of British successes, but it turned things around and led to the eventual defeat of the British and the beginning of American freedom.

Biden, 81, in his speech, compared his re-election to Washington’s “sacred cause” to keep the American Revolution alive and protect the American newly founded representative form of government — a democracy.

“America made a vow,” Bush said. “Never again would we bow down to a king.”

Were Jefferson, who became the country’s third president, around he would have said, “Joe, you’re confused. We were fighting King George III and the British, not Donald Trump and his MAGA army.”

Not that Biden would have cared since he has been filled with fear and loathing over having to face Trump in the November election.

It is as though Trump has gotten so deeply into Biden’s head that Biden cannot even think straight.

In a desperate attempt to tie Washington’s heroics with the Jan 6, 2021, Capitol riot — and blame Trump for it — Biden said, “Today we gather in a new year some 246 years later, just one day before January 6, a day that will forever be seared in our memory because it was a day that we nearly lost America, lost it all.”

For Biden and the Democrats, the Jan. 6 riot could become their “day that will live in infamy,” which is what President Franklin Roosevelt called the Dec. 7, 1941, Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

But don’t tell Joe. He is liable then to morph into FDR.

Peter Lucas is a veteran Massachusetts political reporter and columnist