Biden saves his son at the cost of his character

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I am happy that Joe Biden could save his son because what he writes about the cruelty directed at him was very true.

It was brutal, shameful and wrong.

The malice with which Hunter Biden was pursued had a purpose and intent. All of it was designed to break his sobriety, and kill or provoke him into suicide so his father could be fully destroyed. Anyone who cannot see this is either blind or naive.

Yet, I am outraged that the president of the United States broke his promise, and abused his power to save his son.

The American people do not impose everyday troubles on our presidents. If necessary, we expect them to order the launch of a weapon that could kill 10 million people in a flash.

This is not make believe. It is real life. It is the presidency.

Joe Biden asked for a job in which he could — and did — send other men’s sons and daughters into harm’s way. Some did not come back.

Here is what Hunter Biden said about the pardon his father gifted him like King Charles might bestow a title, or Donald Trump granted an ambassadorship to Jared’s convicted felon father:

I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction — mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport," Hunter Biden said in a statement to Fox News. "Despite all of this, I have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends.

In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages," he continued. "In recovery we can be given the opportunity to make amends where possible and rebuild our lives if we never take for granted the mercy that we have been afforded. I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering.

Here is some of what I have said about Hunter Biden over the last four years:

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I am pleased that his immense privilege has liberated him from consequence, and that he will have an opportunity to live a life of worth and purpose. He is very lucky. Very.

He has experienced misfortune and tragedy through acts of god and choice. He has seen the world from the lowest gutter and the greatest heights. It is all behind him now. He will never have anonymity, but he will have privacy. He should take it and make use of it. He should get away from the fire that so nearly consumed him, and will consume many before this story ends.

He will never be a victim, and claims by his father — the president — that his son deserves special treatment in an unfair and fallen world will never not be gross.

Joe Biden saved his son at the cost of his character. His legacy was already gone. Truly, there is no crueler business. It is just shattering.

I deeply hope that Hunter Biden appreciates the necessity of his last chance being a private act steeped in qualities of humility that seem alien to his family.

There should be no mistaking Joe Biden’s act for what it is. It is an abuse of power, not an act of justice.

Many people reacting to the pardon fall into one of two camps.

The first is that the pardon power has been grotesquely abused by President Clinton, Trump and Biden, and calls for it to be stripped from the president. Most governors hold the pardon power as well.

The second personalizes the issue. “If I was president…” Most parents approach the issue through this lens, it seems. Empathy is a powerful force and a deeply necessary one, but as Governor Jared Polis points out:

In the first instance, maybe the remedy is electing presidents with the character to uphold their oath.

For me, it seems silly to deal with an abuse of power by one president, or five, by stripping it from a future president who may have the character for the job elected in a time of better choices or maybe better citizens.

American presidents hold the power of Armageddon in their hands. God help us for forgetting the connection between grace, humility and justice as the basis of the pardon power.

Its abuse is an obvious and inevitable risk, but the cost of ceding it when moral decisions must be made from time to time is not the right thing to do.

It is not too much to demand of a president something more than we could ever ask of ourselves.

After all, the average American parent has never asked the American people to make them president, and isn’t followed by a rotating cast of military officers carrying the nuclear launch codes. The simple truth is that most human beings would be unable to issue the orders that would kill tens of millions with a nuclear strike if the situation required the president to use those weapons.

The security of our country is absolutely dependent on foreign leaders believing the president of the United States is capable of doing the unthinkable. This concept is of the utmost importance when it comes to appreciating and comprehending nuclear weapons doctrines that have kept the world from destroying itself for almost 80 years.

The presidential oath is a form of covenant that binds a commander in chief to put everything, including their children’s interests, behind the good of the country. There is nothing besides “preserve, protect and defend the constitution of the United States” for an American president. The responsibilities are awesome. Winning the office isn’t a prize. It’s not a game. It’s the greatest burden on Earth.

Trump has nominated a dangerous cabinet of unfit, unqualified and deranged personalities for the some of the most consequential jobs on Earth, where the business is life and death.

The nomination of conspiracy theorist Kash Patel to lead the FBI is a clear signal of Donald Trump’s intention to persecute and prosecute his political opponents. It is very real. The storm is coming.

Patel is a MAGA fanatic who sells vitamin supplements, including a “Covid vaccine detoxification system,” along with socks emblazoned with “K$H” on them.

He is unfit, unstable and a grave danger to the American people. Attorney General Bill Barr — among the worst lawyers to ever hold the office — said this over the idea that Patel would be named deputy FBI director in Trump’s first term:

Patel had virtually no experience that would qualify him to serve at the highest level of the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency.

Over my dead body.

Patel’s threats should be taken seriously, and his nomination opposed.

Democrats should be preparing to enter into a fierce opposition against the profound abuses ahead, but instead, they are playing defense and being undermined by Joe Biden, who is proving through his abuse of power that the American justice system is what Donald Trump calls it: corrupt.

Joe Biden chose to lie to the American people by consistently saying that he would not pardon his son. He knew he would do it, while saying he wouldn’t.

This is his sin.

Cynicism.

He made the claim because it would have been an extraordinary and exceptional thing to do.

It turns out that he was cosplaying “West Wing” from the real Oval Office.

He could have simply said, “I can’t bear to lose another son.” His weakness would not have been held against him, likely even by Trump.

This is not what Biden did. He ran a hustle into a dead end, and then lifted the curtain and said it was the right thing to do.

I don’t know what you think about Joe Biden. I had always admired him. One thing I have learned is that Joe Biden and his immediate staff don’t think very much of any of us.

He used his promise to juxtapose his character, integrity and fidelity to the country against Donald Trump’s obvious faithlessness.

He said it to score political points by promising to do something beyond the imagination of most ordinary people. He pretended he would put duty first, the country first, even over saving his only surviving son from prison.

He said it because it was all part of a dramatic strategy that pretended that the rule of law in America was so sacrosanct that the president would not exercise his powers to save his son from consequences that another man’s son would face.

He did this to make clear Trump’s unfitness, while demonstrating his virtue, which was celebrated far and wide. His refusal to use his power simply underscored how Trump abused his and how unfit he was.

There was no reason to say he would do something he had no intention of doing, unless he expected credit for an extraordinary action that showed the deepest respect and devotion to his oath of office and the rule of law. He wanted credit for something he had no intention of doing. Remind you of anyone?

He would be announcing to the whole world through his refusal to save his own son from his criminal convictions and felony conduct that he believes the American system is fair, just and humane.

Instead, he declared it is fair to everyone except Hunter, and in doing so, he has green lit the pardons of every January 6th criminal who will walk out of jail a MAGA martyr and hero.

The price of cynicism is very high.

Biden proved in an instant that everything with which Steve Bannon, Kash Patel and the entire right-wing media ecosystem slandered the American justice system had at least some merit.

The American people have listened to lectures about the sanctity of the rule of law and Donald Trump’s unique threats toward it for nine long years by every Democratic lawyer, not to mention the governors, senators, congressmen and women, retired judges, prosecutors, FBI agents, and on and on and on.

Today, Democrats, instead of digging in, instead of getting ready to fight back against the terrible wrongs that are gathering, instead are being forced to carry Joe Biden’s bad judgments into the future with a rope tied around their necks.

The rope must be cut.

Joe Biden’s legacy was already shattered when he pardoned his son. It was already reduced to one word: Trump. It will be so forevermore.

What a tragedy. What a warning.

Nothing changes with his son’s pardon besides the supercharging of Trump’s
casus belli regarding his war against the American justice system.

Ezra Klein of The New York Times offered this take:

Yes, but.

Uncomfortable though Joe and Jill Biden’s blinding ambition for power may be for some diehard fans to deal with, the plain truth is they both put their son into harm’s way when Joe Biden decided to run in 2020. It was not because their son was an addict, but because he was making millions working for a Ukrainian energy company, while his father was vice president of the United States of America.

It was unacceptable, unethical and scummy behavior.

They put him in harm’s way because they ran against Donald Trump’s historic corruption with unclean hands.

Joe Biden took the risk with Hunter’s life and sobriety and nearly lost it. He got the presidency, but at what cost?

Joe Biden didn’t run against Donald Trump on policy.

He ran against him as the better man. He fell short because the better man wouldn’t have run again in 2024 when he wasn’t able, and wouldn’t have pardoned his son when he said he wouldn’t.

The pardon fits in the exact same category of broken promise that Biden made about serving one term. It was convenient, manipulative and dishonest. It purchased the second Trump term for America.

The cost of defending Hunter Biden also immolated the reputation of the American news media.

Who was telling the truth about Hunter’s laptop? The New York Times and Washington Post, or Trump and Fox News?

Think about that?

Are you angry with me for saying it, or them for doing it?

Let’s try another one.

Who was telling the truth about Bob Menendez?

The US attorney, or Chuck Schumer, who chose defending his friend over the US Senate, the country and you? This is what he said after gold bars were discovered sewn inside Menendez’ suits.

This only helps Trump by making his case for him. It’s simple. He claims everyone is corrupt.

He says only a corrupt man like him can fix a corrupt system.

He justifies his lies as broader truths.

He says what is true is what the leader says is true.

He claims he can fix everything and anything.

It’s just that he needs power that no one has ever claimed in America before.

Of course, this is the biggest, most predictable and most outrageous Trump lie of all.

The elixir that this produces is as volatile as nitroglycerin.

Incredibly, the only serious ethical black marks on the Obama administration are from the misconduct of the vice president’s son and his father’s indulgence of it.

Besides that, it was an administration that was as clean as a whistle. Truly.

Only Ford and Carter are comparable to the high ethical standards of the Obama administration during my lifetime. It should be no surprise that those two men developed the closest friendship that has ever existed among former rivals and presidents. It was very real and very deep.

Barack Obama ran on keeping lobbyists out of positions of influence and power. He did a very good job overall, but the record wasn’t perfect. The only man whom he couldn’t control was the one who let him down and ended an era before it’s time.

The Obama era of the Democratic Party began on an August night in Boston in 2004 when a 42-year-old state senator from Illinois rekindled idealism in America, and began the last march of the civil rights movement that Dr. King led.

He called the nation together with these clarion words:

There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there's the United States of America.

The Obama era ended when his vice president pardoned his son, the Ukrainian energy lobbyist, for tax evasion and gun crimes, despite being an advocate for tougher gun sentences for 36 years in the US Senate, eight years as vice president and four as president.

It ended with yet another act of ego from Joe Biden’s seemingly inexhaustible well that could be described as Trumpian, if it weren’t so Joe.

It ended within 24 hours of Kash Patel’s nomination, which shows that while Donald Trump is dreaming about secret police and abusing the American people, Joe Biden is thinking about Joe Biden.

Soon, none of this will matter.

Within a week of Trump taking power there will be no time for fools who wish to maintain fictions about the Biden presidency that delivered Trump back to the White House.

Hopefully, the next presidential campaign against MAGA won’t be built on a foundation of group think, sycophantic delusion, self-interest, media access, ratings and lies.

Donald Trump was brought back to power by the vanity and corruption of a single man and his family, and no, their last name wasn’t Trump.

The Bidens were indulged by the same cowardice that Democrats condemned when their Republican colleagues exhibited submission towards Trump.

It’s all the same.

There is no instinct I find more ludicrous in our social media age than to defend the indefensible actions of powerful political figures as if they were fictional characters or athletes on a fantasy team. I think it is ludicrous and repellent.

The problem for the Bidens was the capture of the object — the office that had been Joe’s great white whale. He captured it, and it destroyed him. He turned out to be unworthy of the office. It ate him up and spot him out.

History will be brutal to Joseph Robinette Biden of Scranton, Pennsylvania. His name will be etched in American granite as a warning about hubris and the danger of ego.

Though he was compared to FDR and Washington on “Morning Joe,” in the future, the only reference between the names that matters will be one of placement. Should great presidents be listed in order Biden’s name will be near the bottom.

More than two years ago, I said that a Trump-Biden rematch would be a national catastrophe:

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It was.

It gave us Trump.

I’m genuinely sorry to observe and write that.

It doesn’t make it not true.

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