It’s entirely unclear why the outgoing administration, which has already sacrificed a great deal of public trust — an object of dismissive contempt to its detractors and, at best, pity among its supporters — would set fire to the remainder of its credibility by insisting that it can change the Constitution via tweet. But that seems to be today’s administration-wide initiative:

I am compelled to make note of this occurrence not only because it has the ever-diminishing gravity of the president’s imprimatur but also because Joe Biden’s party seems to be taking it seriously:

This episode raises one urgent question: Precisely how many progressive activists have taken the families of our president, vice president, and junior New York senator hostage?

Little else explains why they would do so much reputational harm to themselves by insisting that an amendment is suddenly operative, even though its seven-year ratification period ended nearly a half-century ago. Why would they do this to themselves when there is almost nothing to be gained from it and lots of credibility to be lost?