Even at his most cogent, Joseph R. Biden is one of the strangest men in American political history.

Last week's press conference was but his latest harrowing misadventure.  His staff were doubtless in the wings perspiring through their business suits while a brigade of nurses from Bethesda Naval stood ready with blood pressure cuffs and smelling salts.

Amid the rambling, uncomfortable pauses, and caustic responses, Biden claimed that during his second year in office, he pledged to leave the cocoon of the White House (and, presumably, Rehoboth Beach) and venture about the land:

I am getting out of this place more often. I am going to go out and talk to the public.

Laudable on its face, perhaps.  But that's just one of the myriad problems with Joe Biden.  He has always been "talking to" the public.

He has talked to the public as he plagiarized the speeches of Robert Kennedy and Neil Kinnock.  He has talked to the public and called them liars and "dog-faced pony soldiers."

When not insulting voters, double-crossing Clarence Thomas, or sniffing hair during his sordid career, he has regaled the public with tales of slaying Corn Pop with only the handcuffs he took from South African constables while leading a brigade of the French Foreign Legion into Saratoga during the Spanish-American War, stopping along the way for Slurpees dispensed by a clean and articulate Indian immigrant.

Perhaps what the geniuses who lead the president around should consider in order to at least attempt to connect with the massive number of fellow citizens he has alienated, insulted, and harmed would be for him to listen to the public.

How compelling and appropriate it would be were the president to travel to various cities and towns to listen to groups of citizens who:

• Have seen with their own eyes that grocery store shelves are not "89 percent full"?
• Have lost their job because of his insane and unconstitutional vaccine mandates?
• Have lost their loved ones because of his insane and unconstitutional vaccine mandates?
• Have had their loved ones maimed because of his insane and unconstitutional vaccine mandates?
• Have lost their loved ones because of the intolerable increase in crime in cities?
• Have lost their job because of the Keystone Pipeline closure?
• Have seen and been impacted by the bifurcation of our laws and our society?

And on, and on, and on...

The president need not — and should not — attempt to counter what people have to say to him, try to convince them of his policies, the efficacy of so-called vaccines, or anything else.  He needs to sit there and take it from coast to coast, and pledge to listen and reflect.  It would be an extraordinary effort in the annals of the presidency.

Academic and author Harvey Mansfield's definition of masculinity is "courage in the face of risk."

What do you say, Mr. President?  Will you for once trade your self-indulgent fantasies of masculine bravery for an actual act of political courage?  Will you refrain from talking to the public and actually listen to the public?

Are you man enough?

Image: Gage Skidmore.