Biden's Pardon Disgrace

On Hunter's Pardon

There are a lot of facts about the circumstances surrounding Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter that I am supposed to care about. I’m sure I should care about the fact that these are politically motivated prosecutions that shouldn’t have gotten to this place. I’m sure I’m supposed to care that Joe repeatedly lied, and had his press secretary lie, by saying that he wouldn’t pardon Joe. I’m sure I’m supposed to care about Charles Kushner.

I know many will say, as Rachel Maddow did, that Kash Patel’s announcement as the prospective FBI Director matters, and that Patel’s “Enemies List” means Hunter needs this pardon. I must confess I only saw the clip, but I’m curious if Maddow called for preemptive pardons of the other 59 names, or whether they’re shit outta luck. I’m supposed to care about the political fallout or lack thereof in the future, and whether “Biden pardoned his kid” can be used to blunt attacks on Republicans for politicizing justice as a way of getting swing voters to think that both sides are corrupt and not just Republicans.

I’m also supposed to care about the fact he’s a father. This is somehow supposed to be enough, as if the idea that this pardon can be defended and even lauded as an act of love and not seen as the gross miscarriage of justice it obviously is. For some reason we’ve decided Hunter Biden deserves this somehow, solely because his Dad is powerful. For those either defending this pardon or shrugging your shoulders at it, I look forward to your principled stance in favour of every familial stance every politician in America makes to get their college kids or nephews or nieces out of DUIs or drug busts. Apparently that’s the new line.

But honestly, toss all of that other shit aside for a second. Joe Biden’s last act in American life has been a fight for the soul of the nation. That is the animating principle of his time since Trump won the first time, the message that he says brought him off the sidelines and back into public life. You don’t get to run for President twice on defending America’s institutions and traditions, including an independent judiciary and respect for the rule of law, make it a key and very visible dividing line with your opponent, and then pardon your kid. You just don’t get to do those two things.

Now, before anyone asks, of course I’d pardon my hypothetical son. Of course I would, and I wouldn’t even think twice about it. I’d make the shady call to get them out of that DUI too, because I get it. But here’s the difference between me and Joe Biden; I didn’t run for President claiming to be a break from the dirty, manipulative, self-interested incumbent and frame my re-election as a necessary step to saving the fucking Republican from this exact self-dealing dirty pool. I wouldn’t be pretending I wasn’t fucking with the system. He did that. He chose that. He doesn’t then get to pardon his kid and walk away clean.

Joe Biden has a great legislative track record - arguably better than Obama’s, and far better than Clinton’s or Carter’s. For a time in 2022 I genuinely believed he was the best US President since FDR. (LBJ is obviously the other difficult decision, but my struggle with him was and remains the number of dead innocents from the Vietnam War. Foreign policy is, shall we say, less of an argument for Biden now.) But now it’s clear that I was wrong. Biden signed some good laws into place, sure. But his legacy will be one of ego and vanity, of selfishness in the face of crisis, and of coming back to save the country and leaving with it on fire. This pardon isn’t much, in and of itself, but it’s just so fundamentally rotten.

Would I be less mad about this if Biden had announced in 2023 that he wasn’t running, had allowed a Democratic Primary to happen in earnest, and the loser had lost to Trump with a full and fair contest? Obviously, because these two things can’t be disentangled. The reason Biden is an object of such anger from me right now is that the basic pitch of Biden 3.0 - after his Senate years and then his 2008 run into VP - was that he and he alone was needed to fight the almost unique threat to the Republic. And he got that argument very, very wrong.

I was never a Biden supporter - I was a Kamala supporter in 2020 who then threw my support behind Pete in a dose of gay solidarity that doubled as a way of not having to particularly get animated for either Joe or Bernie - but when he won I was elated. I genuinely believed he could be the man for the moment, and after January 6th I felt like Biden genuinely had a chance to help the country unite. It united, all right, but around a simple proposition - that they didn’t like him.

After 2021’s Afghan disasterclass he never recovered, and the country steadfastly made clear they didn’t want him anymore. He didn’t listen, he pretended everything was fine and he was going to win, and then he failed. The problem with pitching yourself as the one who can win as a virtue - as opposed to focusing your pitch on values or policy - is that it’s a cold bargain, at the end of the day. Tell any Ferrari fan they will win the 2025 title but they get to pick the driver who does it, and 99% will pick Charles. They’ll cheer if Lewis does it, but it won’t feel as good as if their Prince does. It’s the same in politics - the trade off of picking the candidate who can best win is only ever worth it if you win. Biden won once, sure, but his fundamental pledge was to defeat Trump and be a bridge to a post-Trump politics and country. Well, guess who’s moving back in.

Does any of this have anything to do with the pardon? No, and yet it does. There’s plenty of talk about holding Democrats to higher standards - the vast majority of which is true! - but this isn’t about holding Democrats to a higher standard, this is about holding Joe Biden to the standard Joe Biden has based this entire part of his political career on. You know who I’d get a lot less mad at for this? Gavin Newsom, because Mr. “I’m Not Gonna Let A Silly Thing Like My Own Fucking Regulations Stop Me From Eating At The French Laundry” doing this would be entirely in character. It’s the difference between a womanizer and a cheater - one never gave anyone the false sense they’d be anything different and one did.

Biden ran for President to be different, and to be better, than what we faced in the rise of Trump. He turned out to be willing to toss principles and the national good out the window and to imperil the very notions he claimed were sacrosanct. A lame duck 11 year blanket pardon of your kid for any crimes he may or may not have committed is an Iannucci plot come to life. It’s fucking disgraceful. Two years ago I’d have said it’s beneath Joe Biden, but now it’s exactly where my opinion of him is now.