Joe Biden’s poll numbers are deep underwater. So he tried a PR gimmick. A reset was supposed to re-energize his presidency. The reset has already crashed. Liz Peek chronicles the failure.

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Peek: Poor Joe Biden. Nothing seems to move the needle. His approval ratings are still stuck in the mud and neither the president nor his team seems able to turn around the Titanic.

It’s not for lack of trying, or creativity. The First Cat announcement trended on Twitter and got a nice plug from NBC News. Unfortunately for Team Biden, the headlines over Dr. Jill’s latest pet (Willow, if you’re interested) faded quickly.

Biden even tried retracing a popular gambit from the campaign trail, making an unscheduled visit to an ice cream store recently; he was no doubt disappointed that sampling frozen treats in mid-winter failed to excite the press corps.

Of more consequence, the announcement that Supreme Court Associate Justice Stephen Breyer would soon retire set the president up to make history by appointing a Black woman to the court. The New York Times and other reliable sources furiously debunked speculation that the White House had purposefully leaked the news to generate a positive news cycle, almost guaranteeing that such a behind-the-scenes effort took place.

Though the Sunday shows dutifully focused on the upcoming court nomination, the reality is that a new liberal replacing an existing liberal vote on the bench is not riveting. Also, the president pretty much gave away his “aha!” moment by promising to nominate a Black woman last year when competing for the African American vote days before the South Carolina primary.

The list of candidates is short; there will be dutiful speculation about which female jurist the president will elevate, but it will not quell anxieties over more pressing issues, like rents spiking 20% or more in some markets and gasoline prices rising by almost half.

The search and subsequent confirmation process is also a downer for Biden in that Republicans are unlikely to give the nominee the Brett Kavanaugh treatment; they won’t indulge in disgraceful character assassination, thus eliminating any hyped-up charges of racism that could energize Democrat voters.

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Even worse for the president, the public’s patience with Biden’s use of identity politics to drive hiring has come to an end. A recent ABC News/Ipsos poll shows 76% of Americans, including over half of Democrats, think Biden should consider “all nominees” for the position on the court; a mere 23% approve of his narrowing the field to only Black women…

We cannot wait to see Step Two, the importation of new “experts” to give him advice. I could do that for free. Biden needs to put aside his fixation with race and attend to issues that matter most to voters: inflation, rampant crime and our broken border. In reality, it could be too late.