Hunter Biden has gone from being an embarrassment to a real problem for his father. In the history of squalid presidential siblings and spawn, Hunter has lapped the field—silly Billy Carter who tried to market his own brand of beer and was recruited by Muammar Qaddafi to be his Washington lobbyist; weepy Roger Clinton, nose clotted with cocaine. And so many others who tried to make a living off a successful dad or sibling. The Trump children were spectacularly corrupt buckrakers, using their orange-proximity to score deals in China, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere, but they did it with their clothes on and noses clean (at least, so far as we can tell). Yes, the Republicans are excessive in their pursuit of a campaign issue here; their bloodthirsty avidity makes it hard to tell if there’s anything here beyond the smoke and cinders of a life destroyed. But…
Hunter Biden is an open wound, a profound sleaze. He suffers from Cain syndrome, a lesser son who parlayed a family tragedy—the death of his mother and sister—into a lifetime of weakness, dependency and depravity. The fact that Hunter had an affair with his brother’s widow, immediately after Beau’s death, may tell you all you need to know. But there’s so much more. The drugs and guns, the bawdy selfies, the flagrant attempts to make hay off his father’s name, contrary to the reputation—our least wealthy Senator—that Joe Biden had worked so hard to assemble. Until proven otherwise, I will find it extremely hard to believe that the President was a party to his son’s nefarious schemes.
But he enabled them.
What on earth was Hunter doing on that plane to China with his father? Is it possible that Joe Biden didn’t know Hunter was along for the ride to peddle his good name?Why, after all of Hunter’s scummy dealings with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, did Joe Biden countenance more than a million dollars of “art” “sales” by Hunter in recent years, art which—to my untrained eye—might just be suitable for the walls of budget motels? Who bought the stuff and why? Why did Joe Biden—one of the most empathetic humans I’ve met; at least, he played one on TV—not embrace the grandchild that Hunter conceived with a play-date? Why, after Hunter tried to cop to a plea deal on drug and gun charges, did the President “punish” him by inviting him to a freaking White House State Dinner?
I’m not sure—in fact, I’d be surprised—if the President asked Merrick Garland’s Justice Department to slow-walk or limit the criminal inquiry into his son. I suspect that the testimony, offered this week by two FBI agents, that the investigation was rigged will be sifted and sorted and diminished when we hear from their boss, David Weiss, a Trump appointee held over by Garland. I would be shocked if anything the arch-creep Rep. Jim Jordan has on the Bidens will prove substantial or telling. This is a political ploy, Benghazi not Watergate.
But.
It is not enough for the White House to slough off Hunter’s various depravities by saying, “Hunter Biden is a private citizen, and this was a personal matter.” The attempt to peddle influence is a very public matter. The struggle to deal with a family member brought low by the new plague of synthetic drugs is a major public issue.
While it is near-impossible to evaluate a parent-child relationship from the outside, the circumstances of the case reveal something unsettling about the President. It may just be a case of rampaging compassion for a troubled child, but there is a weakness and indulgence to it that is consequential. Somehow Bill Clinton was able to get his brother Roger to disappear from public view after several embarrassing irruptions. Could Biden not have sequestered Hunter? Could he, at least, not have invited Hunter—now an admitted criminal—to the White House State Dinner days after his plea deal? Could he not have said, I love your artistic endeavors, but can’t you wait till I’m out of office to put them up for sale? Could he not have told Hunter, the DNA results say that this child whom you deny is a Biden and I’d like to welcome her into the family?
Unconditional love is something every parent understands and aspires to giving. But it’s not always the best thing. True love involves the teaching of boundaries and responsibility; it requires sanctions when the child slips into misbehavior, to say nothing of criminal immorality. Hunter Biden may have reformed some of his more egregious habits, but others—the art sales, the refusal to acknowledge his daughter—have continued during this presidency. Joe Biden’s response to his wayward son conveys a softness, a permissiveness that damages his public reputation—and may cost him votes in an election where everything is at stake.
But…
There is an opportunity here. I can understand why the President has been loathe to address this subject. It is family business. But the Biden family’s business—dealing with a child who has drug and mental health problems—is reflective of a national crisis. The increase in drug-related deaths has been staggering. The difficulties involved in dealing with meth or oxy or fentanyl addiction are overwhelming. It is a national problem—not just in poor neighborhoods, but an epidemic in working-class suburbs and rural Appalachia—that Joe Biden could address from personal experience. He could express outrage at a moment when the vile Sackler family attempts new strategies in their attempt to preserve their oxy-fortune.
The issue is alive, electric and very much with us; it is real, not theoretical. It is closer to the bone than gender fluidity or critical race theory. In an era of lazy divisiveness, it would be an opportunity for the President to talk about something too many of us have in common. It would be an opportunity to grieve and mourn, and to inspire—like Clinton after Oklahoma City and Obama after the Charleston church murders.
I have been mystified by the Democrats’—and Republicans’—inability to address an issue that has affected so many American families. Joe Biden could put his personal suffering to great public use and rectify that.
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This really needed to be said, and you say it so well. I read the long profile of Hunter Biden in the Times with close attention, and I came away with the sense that he is one of the most parasitic and distasteful pieces of human waste in our political ecosystem. This guy, it turns out, need to earn a million dollars a year to make his nut, and hence he pimps himself out to every sleazy operator who approaches him (or whom he approaches). He might as well parade down Pennsylvania avenue with a For Sale sandwich board. Biden's advisors (and his wife) need to wise him up fast, or he'll do himself even more damage than he has done already.
Wouldn't it be great if the President took your cue? Drug policy has never made much sense and to say it does not appear to be up the challenge of fentanyl is an awful understatement. In fact it's amazing to me that Hunter survived. So glad he appears to be sober. But a drunken horsethief on the wagon is still a horsethief-without a complete spiritual change. Does not appear to have happened. Like you, I don't think it was good judgment on Joe's part to countenance Hunter's patently exploitive business, his shameful denial of parentage, or his egregiously ridiculous art sales. How would you feel if you were a struggling artist? Doesn't Joe does have a responsibility to the tens of millions of people depending on him to beat back Trump and the MAGA movement, a genuinely corrosive, if not catastrophic, challenge to the republic and our political economy. Does no good to countenance grifting off his name.