Who looks smart? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) months ago advised his colleagues to pass an infrastructure bill of one-time spending on roads and bridges that made sense in many places. McConnell’s strategy was to carve out just enough spending for Manchin to support so he could withstand a barrage of assaults from the left. (It helped that Manchin does not appear to care what blue-state politicians or Twitter socialists say about him.)

Schumer did not have to fumble this ball. He could have been far more vocal about drawing the line at $1.5 trillion or below. It’s the oldest rule in politics: Take what you can get. Schumer misfired this time. Perhaps he won’t in the New Year.

Applause for McConnell, meanwhile, and a bell tolling for President Biden. Since the fiasco in Afghanistan this summer that permanently scarred his presidency, error has piled on error and, now, another wave of covid-19 is sweeping the country. British Prime Minister Boris Johnson just got his head handed to him in a by-election last week in which the Tories lost a seat the party had held for nearly 200 years. Johnson is a conservative and Biden is a liberal but both sit atop rumbling volcanoes. Neither man seems to have a plan.