Former First Lady Jill Biden may not have been running the country.

But she was running Joe Biden, which amounts to the same thing.

And when all the dust is settled over the coverup about Joe Biden’s declining mental capacity as president—if it ever is—it may turn out that Jill Biden was the real power behind the throne, or the real president.

Calling the shots behind the scenes of her obviously incapacitated husband, as well as covering up for him, Jill Biden could go down as the modern Edith Wilson of America.

Edith Wilson was the second wife of President Woodrow Wilson. She ran the country for almost two years when Wilson was incapacitated following a stroke in 1919.

The stroke was of such intensity that a bedridden Wilson was paralyzed on the left side of his body and blind in one eye.

Edith Wilson’s first move after Wilson’s debilitating stroke was to mislead the nation regarding its seriousness much the way Jill Biden talked about Joe Biden’s alleged vigor. This came as Biden was falling down, falling asleep at meetings, his mind wandering, confused, forgetful, stumbling around and slurring his words.

Edith Wilson, who in effect became the first woman acting president, hovered over Woodrow in the way Jill Biden, the second woman acting president, hovered over Joe.

Thanks to his loyal wife, no one outside of the White House, including the press, knew what a basket case Wilson was. Or if the press knew they remained silent about it, the way today’s legacy media (except Fox News and The Wall Street Journal) remained silent about Joe Biden’s mental acuity until he left the White House.

Yet it was still obvious that, as time went by, Joe Biden could hardly talk or walk without Jill Biden at his side.

When he did talk, she ended up finishing his thoughts as he trailed off into space, as she did when the pair recently appeared on ABC’s “The View.”

Edith Wilson guarded her husband the way Jill Biden guarded Joe, only more so.

Even Wilson’s vice president, the genial Thomas P. Marshall, as well as cabinet members and Congressional leaders were prohibited from meeting with the bedridden Wilson.

If they needed decisions on policy matters, they would present them to Edith Wilson, and she would then allegedly confer with the stricken president and return with a decision.

Whether the decisions were President Wilson’s or hers remained an open question.

In a column we wrote last July, we quoted Edith Wilson who died in 1961 at age 89 on the matter.

Of her decision-making role as “acting” president, she said, “The only decision that was mine was what was important and what was not, and the very important decision of when to present the matter to my husband.”

In other words, to get to the president was not through his chief of staff, vice president, House speaker or Senate president, but through her.

Joe Biden, throughout his four years as president, was nowhere in such bad shape as Wilson was.

Yet the coverup of Biden’s mental acuity and physical feebleness is remarkably comparable, even given the pass Biden got from the progressive media today.

With the collusion of the progressive and corrupt left-wing media, Jill Biden and a few White House operatives were able to construct a palace guard around Joe Biden that kept him hidden from the public and accessible to only to a few still unnamed trusted aides.

The question remains whether Congress will seek to hold hearings to determine who decided what during Biden’s presidency.

Did a mentally challenged Joe Biden decide to open the borders and flood the country with illegal criminal immigrants, for instance, or withdraw from Afghanistan in humiliating fashion, or hide his prostate cancer diagnosis from the public, or was it someone else?

The country needs to know.

Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas can be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com.