The New York Post front page on Wednesday, June 12, 2024,
following Hunter Biden’s conviction by a Delaware jury on charges that The
First Son had falsely claimed he was not an addict when he purchased a gun,
makes reference to the “First Felon,” and some grocery shoppers who caught
sight of the headline could not restrain a snicker on their way to purchase
overpriced eggs and other commodities. The price bumps are the result in large
part of an inflation spiral caused, some think, by Biden’s reckless getting and
spending policies.
A friendly cynic who has what he likes to call his master’s
degree in common sense believes the entire President Joe Biden administration
must in the near future collapse into a soul-purifying, loud and sustained
horse laugh.
Accused of cynicism, my friend will remind the accuser that
the Greek cynics were pre-Socratic philosophers. Even Socrates was tainted with
a healthy dose of cynicism, and Antisthenes, the founder of the Greek Cynic School
was a student of Socrates who once accused Aristotle of being in the pay of the
lordly Alexander the Great. Aristotle was Alexander’s tutor.
The Biden-obliging New York Times ran a photo showing Biden
the Elder compassionately embracing his son, as fathers are expected to do when
their wayward sons inadvertently burn down the house.
Following Hunter’s guilty verdict, likely Republican
presidential candidate Donald Trump pledged, sort of, that
he would consider pardoning Biden the Younger if elected president in 2024, because
the verdict, he believed, violates the imprescriptible Second Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution. Trump offered no comment on the upcoming prosecution of
Biden the Younger on more serious tax fraud charges.
Rummaging for a catchy phrase, Hunter Biden prosecutor David
Weiss said of Biden the Younger, “No man is above the law.”
Weiss earlier was the architect of a sweetheart deal in
which Hunter would escape serious punishment on both gun and tax charges.
However, the deal fell apart when Delaware federal district court judge Maryellen
Noreika questioned a tentative agreement in which a felony gun charge would be
dismissed should Hunter plead guilty to two counts of evading taxes accompanied
by a diversion agreement requiring him to remain drug-free and crime-free.
"I have concerns about the agreement," Noreika
said. "I can't let him plea to something if he thinks he has protection
from something and he doesn't." Noreika’s legitimate concerns flummoxed
the lawyers who had concocted the sweetheart deal, and Hunter was forced to
enter a not guilty plea.
Following the collapse of the sweetheart deal and subsequent
trial in Delaware, President Joe Biden’s home turf during his 54 year run in
politics, the “First Felon,” is now facing a prison term of 25 years.
Dispassionate lawyers believe he may not end up breaking rocks in prison, and
his “above the law” status is now in flux.
Before the verdict was rendered, Biden very clearly said he
would not pardon his son. Following the verdict, reporters for The Hill asked whether the president
might commute his son’s pending sentence, at which point the runaround began.
Keeper of White House secrets press secretary Karine
Jean-Pierre, the Hill notes, “dodged the question and leaned on Biden’s
response to ABC last week that he won’t pardon his son.
“’I haven’t spoken to
the president about this since the verdict came out and as we all know, the
sentencing hasn’t even been scheduled yet,’ she said about a commutation.
“’He was asked about a pardon, he was asked about the trial
specifically and he answered it very clearly, very forthright. As we know, the
sentencing hasn’t even been scheduled yet. I don’t have anything beyond what
the president said. He’s been very clear about this,’ she added.”
This is high hilarity. Biden has been “very clear” about
pardoning his son to spare him a lengthy prison sentence. He has vowed not to
do it. But a commutation of sentence that also may spare his son time in the
clinker is the same horse of a different color. And Biden has been less than
forthright in allowing the keeper of the White House secrets from being
forthright concerning commutation.
Most recently, President Biden was asked during a press
conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the G-7 summit in
Italy “if a commutation was on the table,” according to NBC
News. Biden said “No.”
Of course, no commutation could be “on the table’” because
the First Felon has yet to be sentenced.
Only people newly exposed to politics -- all-important youth
voters --believe Hunter will serve 25 years behind bars. Even reporters
favorably disposed to Biden’s candidacy are now cautiously skeptical when “the
truth” tumbles incoherently from the president’s mumbling mouth. The Hill
recently printed a piece showing that Biden won his first term as president by
solemnly promising that, as a “transition candidate,” he would not run for a
second term, a small campaign white lie that has now grown up into a second
term in office.
Biden of course is running for a second term. But
should Biden be running for a second term as president?
On this question, some important Democrats are cynics. But
few are so cynical as to suppose that delegates to the Democrat National
Convention meeting in Chicago from this August 19–22 will boot Biden off the
ticket and choose someone younger, more articulate and less prone to
reinventing his personal history.
“Here is a question to be posed to the candidates seeking
the presidency,” The Hill notes, “in particular, President Joe Biden and former
President Donald Trump. Why does it seem impossible to resolve the most
important challenges facing the nation?”
That question was answered years ago by, I think, Chancellor
of Germany Otto von Bismarck, who said that America never solves its most
pressing problems. Instead, it “amicably bids them goodbye.” Some prominent
Democrats would like to bid the Bidens goodbye – amicably of course. But as the
2024 election approaches, that course of action recedes further and further
into the background, quite like the disappearing southern border of the United
States.
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