I’ll tell you one thing, and I’m not ashamed to say it—when my President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter, my estimation of him as a man just fucking skyrocketed.
There has been chatter through the autumn that President Biden should consider pardoning convicted felon Donald J. Trump (who is a bitch) as a show of goodwill and unity. When I heard this, I thought: if Uncle Joe pardons his ugliest enemy, a hateful fascist, before his failson, a mere fuckup, history will remember him as the world’s dumbest saint. The #FreeHunter campaign has now concluded. I am sure that on the long drive home, his dad sternly admonished: “Son, this is the last time I am bailing you out. From here on, you are on your own!”
To be clear: this is not sarcasm. I do think President Biden did the morally correct thing. In a better world, I do not want politicians to interfere in the prosecution of their children. If Presidents Willard “Mitt” Romney, John McCain, or even Mike Pence were taking over, I would be more disgusted by this clemency. Fiat justitia ruat caelum. Let justice be done, though the heavens fall, as I say (ever since I watched the final episode of Better Call Saul.)
But with Mr. Trump’s new fascist regime incoming? The orange dotard’s cretins have spent years trying to harass Hunter to self-harm, relapse, and suicide in order to hurt his father. They put his private correspondences online, exposed each cranny of his penis, uploaded his sex tapes, and even made public his daughter’s diary. Everything that nobody needed to know, the Party of Family Values made sure we knew.
President Biden has no reason to assume that the torment will stop once his son has been locked up under a Bureau of Prisons run by some Trump-loving thug. Hunter could have easily ended up physically injured, shanked, or killed in the slammer. (And after all, Mr. Trump’s Bureau of Prisons did allow his long-time closest friend, Jeffrey Epstein, to die under strange circumstances—there is good reason to imagine they would do worse to his enemies!)
I did not vote for Hunter Biden. I do not respect him. I do not care what happens to him. He was a child of privilege who lived recklessly while knowing: (1) he was under vicious scrutiny from Fox News, his 🐍 fake friend Tucker Carlson, and some very exploitive political actors; and (2) the general welfare of the nation would suffer greatly if opps caught him slipping. He needed to put down the crackpipe and keep his junk in his trunks for America’s sake, and he failed.
I am agitated by the number of times I have had to see his nine-and-a-half-inch penis on goddamn C-SPAN of all places—hardly anyone’s preferred venue for pornography. I am disgusted he had sex with his brother’s widow. I do not know why being an engaged and informed citizen meant I needed to watch home movies where he smokes crack with a prostitute like Jesse Pinkman, or why his nudes were displayed on the floor of the United States House of Representatives. He should not have a gun.
I wish Joe disowned the guy long ago. He should have held a press conference and said: “My fellow Americans, like many of you, I have a fuck-up child. And like many of you, it has taken me far too long to kick his sorry ass to the curb. Well, I shall not spare the rod any longer!” But for reasons I will never understand, as I am not a father, the big guy loves his son.
The life of Joe Biden brims with grief. He lost his first wife and daughter to a car accident, then his firstborn son to brain cancer. To save the country from Mr. Trump, he had to watch his last son’s sins dissected in the public square for entertainment news. I will not condemn him for not wanting to forsake Hunter so a country that rejected him had one less shitty thing to say. I suspect if Biden did not sign this pardon, next year those same people will be calling him weak, talking shit about how he abandoned his family. There was never a good outcome for him to choose, so why not pick the one that saves his child?
Yes, Mr. Trump’s pardon and subsequent nomination to the ambassadorship of France for his son-in-law’s “loathsome” dad, convicted felon and rich pervert Charles Kushner, is much worse and actually corrupt. Charles Kushner tried to get a candid camera of his brother-in-law in sexual congress with a prostitute, which is objectively creepier. Hunter, at least, had fun. But my fellow Democrats should understand why this pardon is extremely unpopular even with people who are not Fox News enjoyers or hack New York Times columnists. Hunter Biden was unfairly persecuted. But most Americans left, right, and center, do not care about his wellbeing. Rich kids getting away with crime are the villains in American life and fiction.
If you are not already predisposed towards tenderness and sympathy to Uncle Joe’s family story, as I am, then you do not care about how damn sad Hunter’s downfall has been. In which case, what you see is a guy smoking hella crack, getting paid millions riding his father’s good name, fucking prostitutes and his-sister in-law and getting away with it all. You see a man getting out of jail free because his father happens to be the President of the United States. Or, in the words of the Frat Aliens from the Cartoon Network’s Aqua Teen Hunger Force, “[his] dad owns a dealership.”
If you are not emotionally invested in this family, this looks like capital-P Power protecting its own in a way We the People could never be protected. Of course the everymen will be angry. Clear-eyed Democrats of an empathetic nature see this ultimate expression of a father’s love and sacrifice, but the cynics see red. Still, it was the right thing to do. It may be deeply unpopular with the electorate, but Joe Biden is never running for office again. He does not need to care. And on a scale, the safety and well-being of his child will certainly have more weight (to him) than his personal popularity, which is no longer a meaningful currency. He will save his son and the rest of us can go to hell. This is, of course, what a real father looks like.
To pay his dad back, I expect Hunter to put his nose to the grindstone, work hard, “be best,” stay off the grid, out of sight, and keep his head down. If he must go out in public, if he is carrying even a weird-looking vape, some paparazzi will snap a photo and start this whole tabloid mess again. In that case, he ought to be prepared. I recommend he throw on a Trump Is a Bitch baseball cap to either be incognito or to send a message.
