Fair or Not, Optics Matter
After almost six years of Republicans throwing as much Hunter Biden mud against the wall as they could either find or imagine, some of it may finally have stuck. Although none of their allegations have been confirmed, two IRS whistleblowers have announced that they have proof that the younger Biden was granted preferential treatment by both the Justice Department and their own agency. One of them, Gary Shapley, has been featured on right-wing media and was judged to be “immensely capable” by Wall Street Journal reporter Kimberley Strassel, who never met a liberal she didn’t hate.
Despite Shapley’s accusations, the evidence, like almost everything in the Hunter Biden affair, remains both smoky and contested. For example, both Shapley and the other whistleblower, who remains anonymous, claimed that they recommended criminal charges be brought but the United States attorney handling the case, David Weiss, a Donald Trump appointee, was prevented from doing so by Attorney General Merrick Garland. Weiss refuted that claim, stating categorically that he was given complete authority to pursue the case as he saw fit.
To muddle the situation further, Hunter Biden has agreed to plead guilty to two misdemeanor tax charges, which some observers have said was appropriate and others have decried as a fix.
Whether or not the deal is tainted, the legal aspect of the case is only part of the story. Although not perhaps rising to felonious conduct, some of the other charges are damning, including that Hunter Biden evoked his father’s name in what were marginally shady business dealings, and that he engaged prostitutes and then wrote off the cost as a business expense. The aim, of course, is to somehow link President Biden to his son’s conduct, either to demonstrate that the president pocketed money from his son’s dealings, which seems ludicrous, or that he failed to allow authorities to pursue the case with the appropriate vigor, which the president has emphatically denied.
That Hunter Biden’s life had long since spun out of control and has been a burden in his father’s political career is all too apparent, but the circumstances change in complexion when put into context. Hunter’s actual story is one of almost unspeakable tragedy. Just two months before his third birthday, he was involved in a horrible car crash in which his mother and younger sister were killed, and he suffered a fractured skull and severe traumatic brain injuries that put him in the hospital for months. He was released physically whole but psychologically devastated.
As an adolescent, he became addicted to both alcohol and drugs, and has struggled, often not well, to find a successful path for his life ever since. To make his situation worse, his older brother Beau, who also spent months in the hospital after the crash, was able to not only survive but become a star—a war hero who went on to be Delaware’s attorney general and was acknowledged to have a brilliant future in politics. But then Beau died of brain cancer and became, if anything, an even more impossible ideal to approach.
For comparison, one can look at Prince Harry, who lost his mother under similar circumstances and has described his own painful struggles with mental health and drugs. Harry and Hunter both carry terrible wounds that will never heal, although for Hunter it had to be worse. Harry was prevented from seeing his mother’s mangled body, for which he expresses enormous gratitude, but Hunter had no choice—he was in the car.
Hunter did have what Harry did not—a father and stepmother who would not abandon him no matter how much trouble he got himself into, which was frequently a lot, and no matter how much he threatened his father’s political future.
And they still will not.
Therein lies the problem. E. M. Forster once said, “If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” Joe Biden’s decision is less acute but still conscience rending. Given the choice of betraying his political career or his son, Biden has shown that he is willing to betray his political career…although he obviously hopes to have to betray neither.
Whether the president has made a noble decision is, sadly, not the point, nor is whether Hunter Biden is a hopeless ne’er-do-well or if he has been bullied and abused by those who should have shown more compassion. All that matters is whether, in a country riven by anger, hate, and factionalism, and is fighting for, as Joe Biden says, its very soul, Hunter Biden’s missteps, as great or as minimal as they may have been, will hand the presidency to a Republican who may well be Donald Trump.
The answer is that they might.
All other things being equal, given what is widely thought of among Democrats and Independents as a highly successful first term with a growing economy and low unemployment, Biden may well have withstood attacks from the right which promise to become only more vicious and strident. For example, on the Saturday that Yevgeny Prigozhin was leading an armored column toward Moscow to perhaps overthrow Vladimir Putin, the lead story on FoxNews.com, a “bombshell,” as they put it, was some new permutation of Hunter Biden’s misdeeds and how they drew his father in with him.
As Fox’s hyperbole makes only too clear, all things are not equal. In addition to the purely political problem of Biden’s relationship with his son, there is the very real issue of his age. Joe Biden will be eighty-two when the next election is held, eighty-six when his second term ends, and voters have every right to wonder whether he will remain both physically and mentally up to the job.
In some ways the question does not seem fair. Although Bernie Sanders is a year older than Biden, no one questions his acuity because he appears so effervescent and so energetic that a few more years of peak performance seem a snap. For that matter, Trump is only three years younger and no one questions his vibrancy. (Although they may well question almost everything else about him.)
But Biden, although more athletic than either of them and likely more fit, does not appear so. His speech can be halting, mostly the result of overcoming a stutter, and his movements often seem labored, both of which have been right-wing fodder since the day he announced for the presidency.
And so, when Biden announced that he intends to run for a second term, a necessity if he wants to get anything at all done for the remainder of his first, whether Hunter Biden’s problems coupled with his age will keep him viable took on added significance. This is not about performance—no one has ever confused politics with a meritocracy—but merely whether he can overcome appearances and convince voters to trust him for four more years.
Biden clearly is aware of the battle to prove he will be able to remain up to the job. In the wake of the recent Supreme Court decisions invalidating both affirmative action and student loan forgiveness, he immediately attacked the Court and proposed an alternative for debt-burdened students. His public appearances have increased dramatically and his rhetoric has grown more pugnacious.
Nonetheless, a battle it will be. With Biden determined to run and the stakes as high as they will be in 2024, Democrats can only hope that the dual burdens of age and family loyalty will not cost him the presidency and the country its fragile hold on democracy.