Tipsheet

Is This a Sign That the Media Is Starting to Worry About Joe Biden?

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  June 28, 2023 6:30 AM

The story isn’t going away. It’s now piqued the interest of liberal media outlets, and the White House Press Secretary’s office is getting testy about it. Karine Grey Poupon didn’t even attend yesterday’s briefing, entrusting her deputy to handle the press corps. For now, the White House position on Hunter Biden, whether the Department of Justice ran interference on the tax probes, and whether Joe Biden might be involved in a bribery scheme with Burisma holdings, of which he was paid $5 million in 2015-16, is to avoid answering questions about it. That’s not going to diffuse the situation. So, some in The New York Times editorial staff are trying to rebrand the Hunter and Joe Biden story by framing it as one about addiction and a father’s unconditional love. 

If I had a son who was globetrotting and securing me millions of dollars through sleazy government access deals, I’d love him too, crack cocaine addiction and all. It’s not about that—come on. The alleged dirt on these two is piling up, and human interest stories don’t whitewash what’s becoming clearer by the day: Joe Biden will sell his soul to anyone for the right price. 

Also, you need to be popular for this ‘I love my cracked-out son’ pivot to work. Joe Biden is the king of unpopularity; his vice president, the empress of the bilge pump, is worse in the polls. More voters are concerned about Biden’s mental and physical health.  This ticket is a walking disaster, and it’s an indictment on the Republican Party that they haven’t been able to beat them decisively. Tugging at the heartstrings doesn’t work when both sides hate each other, and we hate each other. That’s politics, the organization of our animosities. 

I don’t care about addiction statistics. They’re not germane to the story about the Bidens being neck-deep in a bribery scheme, the Department of Justice interfering in criminal investigations into Hunter, and the Attorney General of the United States being caught lying in front of Congress about it. In a fair world, being a crack whore like Hunter doesn’t give you a legal shield to commit tax evasion, violate gun laws, and broker shady government access deals from which large chunks of the proceeds are funneled into shell companies belonging to multiple family members.