Manchin’s Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act fight with Biden meant a loss for him every­where

Sen. Joe Manchin (I‑WV) is leav­ing the Sen­ate fight­ing with every­one and pleas­ing no one.
The West Vir­ginia cen­trist Demo­c­rat-turned-inde­pen­dent was instru­men­tal in writ­ing and nego­ti­at­ing one of the most impor­tant pieces of leg­is­la­tion for Pres­i­dent Joe Biden’s lega­cy. And he has spent most of his time since it was signed into law dis­parag­ing it.
Biden and the Democ­rats want­ed to use their majori­ties to push through a his­toric piece of cli­mate change leg­is­la­tion. Manchin was a speed bump and the key nego­tia­tor to trim down the $3.5 tril­lion “Build Back Bet­ter” plan to include oil and gas pro­vi­sions. Instead of appeas­ing skep­tics, the Infla­tion Reduc­tion Act left his con­stituents won­der­ing why the mas­sive spend­ing bill had done noth­ing to push down the price of gro­ceries.
“He …