Where does President Obama stand on the fitness of President Biden to stand for another term? Amid the growing contretemps within the Democratic party, the man who lofted Mr. Biden to national prominence has been silent on the question since the day after Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate, when he piped up in favor of his running mate. As doubts have intensified, though, the Biden campaign is accusing Mr. Obama of plotting against him.

That, at least, is the report from MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on “Morning Joe.” The erstwhile Republican member of the House advises viewers this morning that there is belief among “the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials” that “Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this,” Mr. Scarborough said, in a reference to the calls for Mr. Biden to step aside as the Democratic standard-bearer.

Politico, too, reports that Mr. Obama is taking a “quiet, behind-the scenes” approach amid the larger effort “to push President Joe Biden out of his faltering reelection bid.” The 44th president was “in touch with Hollywood icon and Democratic donor George Clooney,” Politico adds, prior to the actor’s “brutal” New York Times column that urged Mr. Biden to step down from his re-election bid. 

If these reports are true, it suggests that Mr. Obama is keeping his doubts about Mr. Biden to himself. While the former president “did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it,” is the way Politico puts it, citing “people familiar with their exchange.” It was all the more striking, Politico reckons, that “the lack of pushback” followed Mr. Obama’s “defending Biden following his abysmal debate performance.”

At the same time, former aides in the Obama White House have become leading critics of Mr. Biden’s candidacy. These include David Axelrod, who says Mr. Biden is losing his race and “needs to consider what the right thing to do here is.” Another former Obama adviser, Jon Favreau, echoed Mr. Clooney’s claims about Mr. Biden’s incapacity to run as “exactly right” and noted “every single person I talked to at the fundraiser thought the same thing.”

The bad blood between Messrs. Obama and Biden goes back years, Mr. Scarborough said. Mr. Biden, he said, is “deeply resentful of his treatment under not only the Obama staff” during his tenure as vice president, “but also the way he was pushed aside for Hillary Clinton” in the 2016 presidential contest. “I think Barack Obama has a lot of influence, and there’s a lot there,” Mr. Scarborough’s wife and co-host at “Morning Joe,” Mika Brzezinski, observed.

One question this raises is — echoing our editorial on Mr. Clooney — what did Mr. Obama know and when? Is he as aware as other Democratic brass of the president’s faltering condition? Why has he not deigned to use his influence? His mincing, his silence, so far raises the same questions these columns noted over Mr. Clooney’s about-face on Mr. Biden’s fitness for office. It’s remarkable that even a two-term president can’t talk straight.