The headline actually should say worst modern president, as nobody will ever top Woodrow Wilson for sheer batbrained lunacy. That being said, do you hear laughter?

It’s an ancient crackling laugh, southern in tone. In it are traces of relief and schadenfreude, as the sky over Plains, Georgia is warmed by the soft glow of redemptive happiness. Yes, James Earl Carter, Jr., the 39th president of the United States is a pleased man tonight. No longer must he bear the outrageous slings and arrows of historians, the media, and the American people that he has so long endured for lo these over forty years. Joe Biden has rescued him. For Joe Biden has got to be worst American president in modern memory.

Inflation? Carter, check. Biden, check. Idiotic energy policy? Carter, check. Biden, check. Blames others for his faults? Carter, check. Biden, check. Humiliated by terrorists? Carter, check. Biden, check. But then the list goes against Biden.

Carter, 51 hostages. Biden, 250. Carter, Desert One. Biden, the Kabul Bugout. In the Iranian desert we left nothing to the enemy. In Afghanistan, we have supplied their entire army. Carter had a legitimate energy crisis and played it badly. Biden had energy independence and threw it away. Carter was sanctimonious and tetchy, but at least he was sentient. Biden, not so much. And it took Carter four years to build up his dismal record. Biden has managed the trick in eight months.

It’s not only laughter from Georgia. In Chicago, the man who warned us not to underestimate Biden’s ability to nail the pig is softly snickering. Barack Obama was a horrible president, but an intentionally horrible president. He hates this country and so sought to do it harm. He wasn’t so much incompetent as traitorous, an inversion of Hanlon’s Razor. But Joe, in his own Scranton way, likely loves this country. However, he loves power more.

James Buchanan, whose weakness brought on the Civil War, is also breathing easier as Biden moves up the failed president ladder. Andrew Johnson can take another gulp of Tennessee rye in the satisfaction of the new ranking order. Whiz kid Herbert Hoover can even quaff a victory libation of warm milk, such is his delight henceforth.

Nevertheless, as high as Joe Biden may ascend on the presidential loser scale, in so many ways he will never top the champ. We speak of the aforementioned Woodrow Wilson.

Think Biden is out of it? Wilson had a stroke midway into his second term. It was covered up and his wife and chief aide ran the country. While they were doing so, Wilson was a howling madman shut away in the bowels of the White House. Prohibition? Wilson. Income tax? Wilson. Turning the US Senate into a smaller US House? Wilson. The guy was a drooling wrecking ball of national horror.

Think Biden can’t get legislation passed? Wilson tanked his own dream, the League of Nations, because he refused to consult with any Republican regarding it. So, they killed it in the Senate. I could go on. Thus in the great scheme of presidential incompetence and mental weakness, Joe Biden is a serious contender for the crown. But it’ll take a lot more than Afghanistan to beat Wilson. A lot more.