Which is why it was at least somewhat satisfying when Biden’s own team, as well as other national Democrats, immediately sawed out the limb from under his desperately shilling defenders. They know what they saw on the tape, and they have concluded that there’s no getting away from what was said — it can’t be denied away by an eager media. The video is what it is. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro appeared on CNN tonight to flatly say that the president wasn’t helping by denouncing Trump supporters as “garbage.” Shapiro understands the stakes in his own state, after all.

Then Biden himself went to Twitter to “clarify” that he was trying to refer to Tony Hinchcliffe — as predictable a spin as could be imagined and one that nobody is under any requirement to accept with a straight face. I know what Joe Biden said, and I have every reason to believe that it is what he thinks, given that he shares a party and a legacy with Hillary “Basket of Deplorables” Clinton. You, with your partisan beliefs as they are, can choose to accept his “clarification.” Instead, I believe that a nasty, angry old man slipped his leash — as he has countless times in the past few months — and said what he and everyone else around him really believes.