The New Yorker’s Adam Entous wrote a fascinating, comprehensive article about Hunter Biden. After reading it, I have more empathy for Hunter and Joe. Life is complicated, messy, and sometimes tragic. I also believe more than ever that Joe Biden is a terrible candidate for president. This passage sums it up for me.
“And yet, to many voters, the controversy over Hunter’s business dealings will appear to have been avoidable, a product of Biden’s resistance to having difficult conversations, particularly those involving his family. Hunter said that, in his talks with his father, “I’m saying sorry to him, and he says, ‘I’m the one who’s sorry,’ and we have an ongoing debate about who should be more sorry. And we both realize that the only true antidote to any of this is winning. He says, ‘Look, it’s going to go away.’ There is truly a higher purpose here, and this will go away. So can you survive the assault?”
Everyone sees the controversy as avoidable. Everyone. I’ve read a few articles now claiming that staff members were afraid to be too candid or vocal about the optics. Joe’s apparently a yeller or a screamer. Jesus, were his staff members 15? Oh gosh, screaming and yelling. Nobody likes getting yelled at. But if you’ve made it that far in political DC, you’ve been yelled at before. And if your boss refuses to see what’s right in front of him and what will come back to bite him in the ass, you risk the yelling and screaming.
I think Joe Biden is an honest, hard-working politician. But he’s been doing it too long, and he’s made way too many bad calls. In this instance, he’s playing the exceptionalism card. I can imagine Joe saying - Hunter and I probably should have handled things differently, but it was because of our commitment to honesty - not discussing work with one another - and our mutual respect that we couldn’t see the bad optics. That’d be sweet. It’s also ridiculous.