If Barack Obama taught us anything about presidential politics, it’s that personality trumps policy. Because even as inept and insufferably arrogant as he was, Obama the person was always viewed more favorably than were his ruinous policies. Try as they might, his media enablers simply couldn’t keep putting lipstick on all those far-left legislative pigs.

So it is with Joe Biden and his mystery list of potential Supreme Court nominees. He promised us he’d release it, but now he says he’ll avoid doing so in order to honor our “cherished system of checks and balances.” Uh-huh.

“First, putting a judge’s name on a list like that could influence that person’s decision-making as a judge,” he now says, “and that would be wrong — or at least create the perception it would influence. Second, anyone put on a list like that under these circumstances will be subject to unrelenting political attacks.”

Translation: My handlers won’t let me release “my” list, because they know you respect the Bill of Rights and the Rule of Law.

The Left, generally, loathes transparency. But it’s worked well for President Donald Trump — especially with his focus on the judiciary. Exit polling from 2016 confirmed that one in five voters said that the makeup of the Supreme Court was their most important issue, and 57% of them cast a vote for Trump. In fact, Trump might be the most transparent president in history. He invariably tells the American people what he’s going to do, and then he goes out and does it with dogged determination.

Not long before he began experiencing cognitive decline and became a presidential puppet, Joe Biden also believed in transparency. Recall that he was once fond of saying, “Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value.” And the same applies to judges, does it not? Show me your judicial list, and I’ll tell you what you value.

Here, then, is what Joe Biden values regarding the judiciary: .

And here is what Donald Trump values:

Amy Coney Barrett: The betting favorite to fill this vacancy, Barrett, 48, a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, was on the short list of nominees to fill Antonin Scalia’s seat, which instead went to Neil Gorsuch. Barrett is a solidly conservative Midwesterner, a Catholic, a former Notre Dame law professor, a mother of seven, and the judge about whom President Trump reportedly said, “I’m saving her for Ruth’s seat.” As such, she met with President Trump on Monday, and she’s already being viciously smeared by the Left.

Barbara Lagoa: A late riser among potential nominees, Lagoa, 52, was appointed to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals last year by Donald Trump. Before that, she sat on the Florida Supreme Court. She’s also a Catholic, a mother of three, and the daughter of Cuban refugees who fled the Castro regime. Lagoa long ago served pro bono on the legal team representing the Miami-based relatives of Cuban-born Elian Gonzalez in an internationally famous child custody case against the Clinton administration. Since then, she’s authored or participated in sound rulings on executive power, felon voting rights, and minimum wage laws among others. She’ll meet with President Trump when he travels to Florida on Friday.

Joan Larsen: In just a few short years, this little-know legal scholar from Michigan has become a prominent federal appeals court judge and now a candidate for the High Court. Larsen, 51, a former Michigan Supreme Court justice who now sits on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, clerked for the late Antonin Scalia in the early 1990s and eulogized him at his funeral in 2016.

Allison Jones Rushing: Prior to her appointment to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in 2019, Rushing, who’s just 38, was a partner at a prestigious law firm. Rushing, a North Carolina native, has clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and then-Judge Neil Gorsuch on the Tenth Circuit Court.

Kate Todd: Currently the deputy assistant to the president and deputy counsel to the president, Todd, 45, served as senior vice president and chief counsel of the United States Chamber Litigation Center and as a law firm partner. She also clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas and graduated magna cum laude from Harvard Law School.

The president has declared he’ll announce his pick at 5:00 p.m. Saturday.