The demented old man bit may be the schtick.

I don't know the truth. But does a botched face lift result in attaching the earlobes?

That seems to be the "rational" explanation, but I'm not buying it until I see clear examples of someone with unattached earlobes who definitely went for a face lift and ended up with attached ones.

Someone on reddit linked this photo of a botched face lift where the person has attached lobes. But there is no before image showing obviously unattached lobes.

Biden went from one end of the earlobe spectrum to the other, genetically speaking:

http://udel.edu/~mcdonald/mythpix/mythears.jpg