Nice Work, If You Can Get It: Team Biden Circles The Wagons

The Shape Of Things To Come?

https://nypost.com/2019/07/05/joe-biden-keeps-making-things-worse-for-himself/

<i.>

One of the oldest, sickest, oft-repeated jokes that America plays on its citizens is the notion that it's some kind of meritocracy. At some point in our lives, we all learned that simply wasn't true, whether that lesson came in junior high -- when we watched the popular kids pick each other for their baseball teams, and leave us standing, way last, in the outfield -- or in high school, where the spoiled jerk who always had a blonde on each arm, and his first car at 16, went on to become a high-profile CFO, courtesy of his family name, and/or connections. (My own favorite anecdote is the star basketball player who earned an ACT composite score that fell 50 percent below the desired minimum, which didn't prevent him from graduating.)

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but not by half. As over the top as the above images seem, I'd argue the need to believe in a meritocracy is an essential ingredient of our social DNA, even if the reality doesn't match up. It's a belief that drives many a public policy debate, like the infamous Clinton-era welfare overhauls of the 1990s -- which essentially arose from the notion that the undeserving had out-hustled and overtaken the truly needy. That the needy who remained on the rolls would now have to live with scaled-down benefits, and no end of restrictions -- like work requirements, for instance -- was incidental to the whole exercise.

Which brings us to Joe Biden's troubled offspring, Hunter, and uncle, James Biden, who've been reaping a lot of negative news this week for the putative Democratic front-runner. That status seems shaky at the moment, though it will depend on how many other shoes start raining down. The 2014 photo that's surfaced of Joe golfing with Hunter and his Ukrainian business partner, presumably, will do little to help the cause.

In one sense, the avalanche of revelations of Hunter Biden's unorthodox business dealings triggered by Trump's forthcoming impeachment proceedings amount to business as usual. This is how Washington works, the talking heads on TV wearily intone. You get along to go along, blah-blah-blah. It's not what you know, blah-blah-blah, it's who you know, blah-blah-blah. No, it's who knows you. And so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat.

In yet another sense, you can feel a perverse note of empathy for Hunter, who toiled in the shadow of his far more illustrious brother, Beau Biden -- who seemed headed for a glorious political ride, only to have brain cancer cut it brutally short. At one point, Hunter's life seemed to have skidded so far down, that he convinced someone to pull some strings to get him into the U.S. Naval Reserve at 42, well beyond the age that military recruiters typically desire. Yet even with that helping hand, Hunter Biden washed out of the U.S. Navy as quickly as he'd arrived.

Given Hunter's apparent lack of discernible talent for anything in particular, it's not surprising that he determined, early on, to cash in on his family connections. What else could he really offer? It's a similar rationale that the villainous boxing manager, Maish Rennick, voices to his fallen protege, in the climactic scene of Requiem For A Heavyweight: "You're not a winner anymore, Mountain. There's only one thing left. Let's make some money from the losing."

Of course, Hunter came out of his deals slightly better than the banged-up Mountain Rivera, starting right out of law school, when he picked up a $100,000 retainer as a "consultant" to the credit card giant, MBNA, one of many corporate entities located in the Bidens' home state of Delaware. Not all of his ventures succeeded, as you'll see from the National Review timeline below, but nevertheless, it didn't take long for the Bidens' deals to reach the seven-figure-plus range. The deals came rolling in, goosed by foreign countries eager to buy the access they desired, in order to push their own agendas.

<ii.>

Again, it's all part of a larger climate where neoconservative and neoliberal offspring alike float along an oil slick of entitlement, whose skids were arguably greased long ago by the likes of Buckley v. Valeo, the infamous 1976 Supreme Court decision that slammed the brakes on campaign spending limits by countering, "Hey, kids, corporations and dollar bills are people, too." The coup de grace came along in 2010, with the Citizens United ruling, one that opened the floodgates for unlimited campaign spending -- and spectacles like the dark money group that spent $22 million to jam Brett Kavanaugh onto the Supreme Court (including $17 million alone that came from one anonymous donor).

This, of course, is precisely the problem with the Bidens, and for that matter, all who came before them -- the Clintons, the Bushes, and so on, and so forth. Wash, rinse, repeat. In such a climate, it's hardly surprising that Biden's defenders are furiously pumping out any number of shaky defenses, ranging from the classic "ya got nothing on us" bit ("None of the activities were illegal, per se"), to the "matter of degree" line ("Trump's abuses of power are far worse, and far more damaging"), to the "zombie apocalypse" credo ("If Biden falls, we'll get stuck with four more years of Trump"). As any quick glance at the mainstream media will tell you, Biden has plenty of allies, all doggedly pumping out variations on the above themes with the megaphones that their various platforms provide them. Or, as my late father put it, "One crow doesn't peck another."

But I still see too many fatal flaws in this line of thinking. For one thing, it's hard to take Team Biden's messge ("Eat your spinach, vote your head, not your heart, blah-blah-blah") seriously, when it's obvious that his family has never done likewise. For another, voters have wearied of the constant commingling of business, pleasure and policy that characterizes so many neoconservative and neo-liberal side projects. Team Biden is crawling with lobbyists, like his so-called climate adviser, Heather Zichal, who earned $1.1 million from her ties to the liquified natural gas industry, an energy option that -- not coincidentally -- the Obama administration avidly encouraged. With these sorts of characters lurking behind the curtain, how can you seriously expect a Biden Presidency, should one ever materialize, to tackle the global dumpster fire of climate change? If you believe that the link doesn't matter, you're a more optimistic bugger than I, but I digress.

The final irony, though, is that nominating someone like Biden will repeat the error of 2016, when Trump repeatedly called out Hillary Clinton's political and business baggage to his own perverse advantage by saying, "You think I'm so bad? Well, look at her! You don't know who's lurking behind her curtain! At least you know who's lurking behind mine!" This is why simply moaning about Trump's dark, divisive nature, won't stick against him, in and of itself. The people who chose him in 2016 are well aware of his flaws, for the most part, but wanted someone to blow up the system. That tendency is amply documented. Now imagine them looking at someone like Biden, who epitomizes the "swamp creature" that they so despise -- the same kid who always got the pitcher's mound in junior high, the same rich jerk who got the shiny new car and the blondes on each arm. it's not hard to guess how they'll react, and not hard to imagine Trump gleefully rubbing his palms together: "Oh, boy, I get to muddy the waters again! I can't wait!"

Time will tell how this latest mushrooming narrative of scandal plays out, but the war clouds currently swirling above Team Biden remind me of an equally troubled nominee, Warren G. Harding, from the Roaring Twenties. Like Biden, Harding was a terrible public speaker, one whose utterances made little sense in cold print. Like Biden, Harding's 1920 presidential campaign rested largely on the idea that the nation needed to be soothed, not challenged to greater heights. Feral capital pirates and white-sheeted Ku Klux Klanners had nothing to fear from him, because he simply wished they would go away, so he wouldn't have to hold them accountable for their misdeeds.

Unlike Biden -- who's 0 for 2 in the presidential box score -- Harding rode to the White House, flanked by a group of shadowy opportunists -- some on the government payroll, like Interior Secretary Albert B. Fall, others preferring a lower-key role, like the ever-resourceful go-between, Jess Smith -- who wasted no time cashing in their political IOUs, and cranking up the side deals they hoped would make them ever more rich, and ever more powerful. The cascade of scandals took a physical and emotional toll on Harding, who died in 1923. His name remains forever associated with scandal, cronyism and corruption. 

Historians have argued the degree of Harding's competency and culpability for his "Ohio gang"'s misdeeds ever since, though the debate has hardly budged his ranking near the bottom of American presidents, a place that Trump may eventually overtake. Yet even more forgiving biographers, like Robert K. Murray, remain adamant about one thing -- the need to take accountability, once things head south, as he suggests in his 1969 book, The Harding Era 1921-1923: Warren G. Harding And His Administration. 

"In the American political system, there is no such thing as an innocent bystander in the White House," said Murray, in part. "By his inaction, he forfeited whatever chance he had to maintain the integrity of his position and salvage a favorable image for himself and his administration. As it was, the subsequent popular and scholarly negative verdict was inevitable, if not wholly deserved." It's a point that Team Biden and its defenders, such as they are, would do well to ponder, whenever the next shoe happens to drop. Or if they actually make it to the White House.--The Reckoner

Links To Go (Hurry, Hurry,
Before The Bidens Beat You To The Post)

National Review
Hunter Biden: The Most Comprehensive Timeline:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/09/hunter-biden-comprehensive-timeline/

Post-Bulletin
Normal Is What Got Us Here:
https://www.postbulletin.com/opinion/columnists/normal-is-what-got-us-here/article_3da0a11a-cb37-11e9-99d9-d386e4cc3469.html

Skafish:
Disgracing The Family Name:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=974DvCkUtEQ

Sludge Climate
Biden's Climate Adviser
Earned $1 Million From Natural Gas Company:
https://readsludge.com/2019/05/10/bidens-climate-adviser-earned-1-million-from-natural-gas-company/