Suppose you had a financial advisor who was consistently wrong. Suppose he told you to buy stock just before a market crash. Suppose he told you to refinance your home just before mortgage interest rates fell. Superficially, this man would be dangerously useless. You would fire him immediately.

But on closer inspection, he would be invaluable. When he told you to buy, you would sell. When he told you to sell, you would buy. Soon you would be a millionaire. Being consistently wrong is as useful as being consistently right – so long as you did the exact opposite.

Joe Biden is that guy. He insisted on totally abandoning South Vietnam, leading to the infamous photo of refugees crowding up the ladder, trying to get on the last helicopter off the roof. He opposed civil rights laws and said his “mentor” was Robert Byrd, former Exalted Cyclops of the KKK. He opposed killing Bin Laden when even President Obama favored it. Now he is responsible for leaving Afghanistan precipitously, resulting in a debacle.

If only we had recognized this sad fact, we could have saved ourselves a lot of trouble. We could have left Joe Biden at the head of the conference table, but surrounded him with people who would do the exact opposite of what he advised. If only we had known. Oh wait, we did know. We just ignored what we knew. It’s on us.