When on Thursday night the vice president had finished playing, by turns, Wile E. Coyote and a high school Lear, that part of the country’s startled middle that had not changed the channel in disgust at his antics looked at each other and said: “He’s the vice president?”

The Left cheered, of course. Like contestants emerging from the “Sound Proof Booth” during a quiz show who had not heard the proceedings, lefties climbed all over one another to proclaim Biden a debate Caesar. The online dancing and the cable show fist bumps were a second spectacle advertising the disconnect of Team Obama from the country that is filling up with $5 gas in California. The cheers over 7.8 percent unemployment had been the first clue that the president’s legions had lost their way, but the celebration of this second debate disaster is an unmistakable message to the rest of the country to get out of the car.