For a savvy politician, Joe Manchin appears to have lost his touch.

Last month, the man who reveled in his leverage in an evenly divided Senate suddenly signed on to Joe Biden’s $739 billion spending spree, called, in one of the howlers of all time, “The Inflation Reduction Act.” In exchange, Manchin finally got the plaudits of the elite media and a promise from Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that a Manchin bill making it easier to permit energy pipelines (including a key one in a West Virginia pipeline) would have support.