So much for the moral high ground.
President Biden gave his son, Hunter, the most blanket of blanket pardons ever issued in order to keep him out of jail for a crime for which he was found guilty by a unanimous jury of his peers, another for which he pled guilty, and whatever else he might have done during his name-dropping in return for riches in Ukraine and China.
Pardoning Hunter is something Biden insisted multiple times he would not do. I understand that a parent does not want his offspring to suffer, but a president is not just any parent. Rather, he is the pater familias of all of us. He takes an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution, which includes honoring the rule of law. Biden just set that aside.
The worst aspect of Biden’s hypocrisy is not that he went back on a promise. Presidents do that all the time. No, it is that by pardoning Hunter, he has played directly into Trump’s filthy little hands, giving him the gift of justification for the many corrupt pardons he is likely to grant to the January 6 insurrectionists who attempted to overthrow the government of the United States. This will amount to a traitorous criminal president pardoning people who committed the high crime of treason. Trump will draw a false equivalency with Biden’s corrupt use of the pardon power, which will temper any criticism by Democrats or the media. Moreover, voters will not process that. It will soften the outrage to “ho-hum” levels.
Hunter Biden is no innocent victim. He spent years shamelessly parlaying his father’s name in return for big bucks, and he committed at least two criminal offenses–buying a gun illegally and evading taxes. He was legitimately prosecuted, not persecuted. I’m sorry he became an addict, but that does not obviate his also being a criminal.
Until Biden’s reckless abuse of his presidential power, I believed that only Trump was above the law, thus rendering the now completely discredited refrain that “no man is above the law” a joke. The Supreme Court saw to that with Chief Justice Roberts’ preposterous presidential immunity opinion last summer tailor-made as a get-out-of-jail-free card for Trump. Roberts’ lame opinion was reminiscent of the indulgences (a.k.a., get-out-of-Hell-for-a-fee cards) the Catholic Church dispensed back in the 16th century that led to the Reformation. As I said in this column before, this was the worst decision in the history of the Court, dwarfing Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Korematsu v. United States, as well as the plethora of other horrible Roberts Court decisions.
I was appalled when, in his last days in office, Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother, Roger, wiping out his drug conviction. But this is worse, even more shameful because it provides Trump with what he will argue is a great excuse to pardon the scum of the Earth now rotting in jail for their crimes of defiling the Capitol and the Constitution.
Add one more nail to the coffin of Biden’s legacy, to go with keeping a Hamlet-like, hesitating nonentity like Merrick Garland as Attorney General despite his slow-motion bungling of Trump’s prosecutions; half-baked support of Ukraine in its desperate fight for survival; unmitigated support of Netanyahu’s Gaza butchery; gifting Afghanistan to the Taliban; and feeble attempts at trying to convince voters that their lyin' eyes could not see how great Bidenomics was despite having to pay a king’s ransom for milk, eggs and bread every week; etc.
Oh, and one more thing: Hunter’s post-pardon announcement statement that “I took responsibility for my actions” is nonsense. If he really did, he would reject the pardon, face the consequences of his actions, and do his time.
The race to the bottom continues. I am sad for our country. America imploding is not a pretty sight.
Dick Hermann
December 6, 2024
President Biden gave his son, Hunter, the most blanket of blanket pardons ever issued in order to keep him out of jail for a crime for which he was found guilty by a unanimous jury of his peers, another for which he pled guilty, and whatever else he might have done during his name-dropping in return for riches in Ukraine and China.
Pardoning Hunter is something Biden insisted multiple times he would not do. I understand that a parent does not want his offspring to suffer, but a president is not just any parent. Rather, he is the pater familias of all of us. He takes an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution, which includes honoring the rule of law. Biden just set that aside.
The worst aspect of Biden’s hypocrisy is not that he went back on a promise. Presidents do that all the time. No, it is that by pardoning Hunter, he has played directly into Trump’s filthy little hands, giving him the gift of justification for the many corrupt pardons he is likely to grant to the January 6 insurrectionists who attempted to overthrow the government of the United States. This will amount to a traitorous criminal president pardoning people who committed the high crime of treason. Trump will draw a false equivalency with Biden’s corrupt use of the pardon power, which will temper any criticism by Democrats or the media. Moreover, voters will not process that. It will soften the outrage to “ho-hum” levels.
Hunter Biden is no innocent victim. He spent years shamelessly parlaying his father’s name in return for big bucks, and he committed at least two criminal offenses–buying a gun illegally and evading taxes. He was legitimately prosecuted, not persecuted. I’m sorry he became an addict, but that does not obviate his also being a criminal.
Until Biden’s reckless abuse of his presidential power, I believed that only Trump was above the law, thus rendering the now completely discredited refrain that “no man is above the law” a joke. The Supreme Court saw to that with Chief Justice Roberts’ preposterous presidential immunity opinion last summer tailor-made as a get-out-of-jail-free card for Trump. Roberts’ lame opinion was reminiscent of the indulgences (a.k.a., get-out-of-Hell-for-a-fee cards) the Catholic Church dispensed back in the 16th century that led to the Reformation. As I said in this column before, this was the worst decision in the history of the Court, dwarfing Dred Scott v. Sanford, Plessy v. Ferguson, and Korematsu v. United States, as well as the plethora of other horrible Roberts Court decisions.
I was appalled when, in his last days in office, Bill Clinton pardoned his half-brother, Roger, wiping out his drug conviction. But this is worse, even more shameful because it provides Trump with what he will argue is a great excuse to pardon the scum of the Earth now rotting in jail for their crimes of defiling the Capitol and the Constitution.
Add one more nail to the coffin of Biden’s legacy, to go with keeping a Hamlet-like, hesitating nonentity like Merrick Garland as Attorney General despite his slow-motion bungling of Trump’s prosecutions; half-baked support of Ukraine in its desperate fight for survival; unmitigated support of Netanyahu’s Gaza butchery; gifting Afghanistan to the Taliban; and feeble attempts at trying to convince voters that their lyin' eyes could not see how great Bidenomics was despite having to pay a king’s ransom for milk, eggs and bread every week; etc.
Oh, and one more thing: Hunter’s post-pardon announcement statement that “I took responsibility for my actions” is nonsense. If he really did, he would reject the pardon, face the consequences of his actions, and do his time.
The race to the bottom continues. I am sad for our country. America imploding is not a pretty sight.
Dick Hermann
December 6, 2024
RSS Feed