On Friday, with the mid-term election just days away, Joe Biden decided it’d be a great idea to rant about closing down coal plants. As RedState reported, the president proclaimed that “we’re going to be shutting down these plants all across America” in favor of inefficient, unsustainable wind and solar projects.

Naturally, his statement drew a lot of perplexed looks. Why would Biden, even if he believes it, be so stupid as to shout from the rooftops about crushing jobs right before voters in key battleground states head to the polls?

Sen. Joe Manchin, whose state relies heavily on the coal industry, was none too pleased. He ripped Biden in a statement Saturday morning, calling the president’s comments “outrageous and divorced from reality.”

My statement on comments President Biden made about shutting down coal plants: pic.twitter.com/LEeqrGdwqm

— Senator Joe Manchin (@Sen_JoeManchin) November 5, 2022

As I read Manchin’s statement, I can’t find anything wrong in it. The senator is correct that Biden’s positions change “depending on the audience and the politics of the day.” He’s also right that the White House’s anti-energy policies will only bring about more “pain” for Americans.

But sometimes you can be right and still be worthy of mockery, and this is one of those times. Joe Manchin is not new to Washington, DC. He’s personally known and served with Joe Biden for decades. Given that, absolutely nothing Biden said in his remarks should come as a shock. In fact, the president has advertised his desire to shut down coal plants for years.

For Manchin to pretend to be outraged at something he was already aware of is laughable. It’s the worst kind of political performance art, made even more ludicrous by the fact that the West Virginia senator recently signed onto an $800 billion bill full of “climate change” giveaways. What exactly did he think was going to happen? Did he seriously think his Democrat colleagues were going to use that money to prop up the coal industry?

Manchin had a choice to make back during the summer. He could have stood on principle, kept his word, and not stabbed his Republican friends in the back. Instead, he decided to try to be a hero to the far left. How has that worked out for him? Remember when Manchin said he was going to get “permitting reform” as payment for his vote for the falsely-named Inflation Reduction Act? Yeah, that didn’t happen either.

Manchin is a sucker. He got played, and now he wants to tip-toe back to the other side with his faux indignation. Yeah, none of us are buying it. His political career is over. He had a chance to do the right thing and didn’t. Manchin owns Joe Biden and his policies now, and there’s no wiggling out of that.