Just give us a real answer, Mr. Biden

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden’s stubborn, self-defeating refusal to venture an opinion on suggestions to increase the number of U.S. Supreme Court justices is a textbook example of poor decision-making that’s turned what should have been a one day story into a running narrative that threatens to dominate the campaign discussion three weeks out from Election Day.

Biden compounded the controversy with his appallingly arrogant response to reporters that the American people didn’t “deserve” to know his position on the court packing scheme being pushed by his party’s left wing.

Biden and his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, have dodged repeated questions seeking their position on issue.

Biden brushed the inquiries aside, saying he’d articulate a position once the election was over, adding that he wanted to avoid media coverage of his response.

The idea of increasing the court’s membership was floated by a bloc of left wing Democrats in response to President Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the seat left open by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Conceding they were powerless to defeat the nomination, the small band of Democrats opted to negate it by expanding the court by four justices who shared their legislative agenda and could be counted on to block rulings which failed to comply with it.

The proposal threw Biden into a bind — he could support it and risk alienating the moderate, centrist base crucial to his success, or oppose it and arouse the wrath of the left whose distrust of him still lingers.

He chose the path of least resistance — stonewall and refuse to respond.

Biden’s cavalier kiss off of the American people as undeserving of his attention is an example of his history of the kind of shoot from the lip, unthinking, glib reaction many in his party feared would surface during the campaign. They must be yearning for the good old days of Biden in the basement reading canned commentary from a teleprompter.