So Biden has given a full and total pardon to his son Hunter, both for his actual crimes and for any possible federal crimes (the President cannot pardon for state crimes) he may have committed. There is a firestorm about the pardon’s wrongfulness, even within the Democratic party. And the critics do have a huge point, namely that Trump can now pardon anyone he wants, including the January 6th “warriors” and “hostages,” and all Republicans will have to do to justify those pardons and any others is to simply say, Well look what Biden did, after all those claims that he wouldn’t pardon his son. So much for the high ground.
Never mind that Trump has already promised those pardons on “Day One,” never mind that Hunter Biden’s sleazy behavior has been a target of congressional Republicans only as a means to smear his father, and especially never mind that Trump himself has threatened to go after the “Biden crime family” and has promised to punish his enemies with hammer and tong as “retribution” for all the attempts to hold him accountable for his actual crimes and for the crime of criticizing him. Presumably he is the only presidential candidate who has overtly made “retribution” against “the enemies within”–i.e., his critics–a central campaign promise. And, for the morally blind, never mind that there is a monumental difference between pardoning hundreds of still dangerous violent and treasonous insurrectionists attempting a coup and a guy who lied on a gun application and who pled guilty to significant tax evasion. There’s no moral equivalence here, irrelevant of what Republicans will claim. (See my “The Necessity of Making Moral Distinctions.”) One might add not only Trump’s own years of consequence-free tax evasion but also that he had previously pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father who was doing time for the same crime, a punishment that was not the result of a self-satisfying political vendetta.
So yes, once you drop the “never minds,” Joe has cost Democrats the moral high ground, at least on this issue, and his legacy is stained. I concede the point, not being quite willing to argue that the high ground is for chumps—though tempted to do so in this case, given what we know about Trump. If either Romney or McCain were the incoming president, I would even argue that Joe unequivocally did the wrong thing on both the personal and the practical-politics levels. But there is an element of sadism in Trump’s quest for revenge, and Joe Biden was certainly not oblivious to that.
Who, then, among Joe’s critics is willing to sacrifice his own son? You? Me? Sure, only to prison time,* not to death, but for once I’m not inclined to cast stones. For that ultimate sacrifice, if you’re a Jew, only Abraham was willing. If you’re a Christian, only Abraham and God. And God doesn’t exactly get off scot-free here either. It may have been noble of God to sacrifice his son, but it wasn’t at all noble for God, Trump-like, to put Abraham through the exquisite torture of almost having to kill his son, with the knife at Isaac’s neck, just so that God could bask in the self-mortifying submission he has demanded of, and received from, his poor servant.
*Hunter Biden was convicted of lying on a federal gun application, lying to a gun seller, and possessing a firearm as a drug user, with a possible sentence of twenty-five years, according to January 15, 2025 USA Today; he was also convicted of not paying millions in taxes over several years, which could have resulted in a maximum seventeen years. While no jail time at all was a possibility, had he received the maximum sentences to be served consecutively, he would have likely served the rest of his life in prison for non-violent crimes. It should be noted that Trump’s likely tax evasion over multiple years did not even result in a criminal charge, much less a trial and conviction.
John Rachal's Blog
Casting Stones
December 4, 2024 at 1:06 am (Political Commentary)
So Biden has given a full and total pardon to his son Hunter, both for his actual crimes and for any possible federal crimes (the President cannot pardon for state crimes) he may have committed. There is a firestorm about the pardon’s wrongfulness, even within the Democratic party. And the critics do have a huge point, namely that Trump can now pardon anyone he wants, including the January 6th “warriors” and “hostages,” and all Republicans will have to do to justify those pardons and any others is to simply say, Well look what Biden did, after all those claims that he wouldn’t pardon his son. So much for the high ground.
Never mind that Trump has already promised those pardons on “Day One,” never mind that Hunter Biden’s sleazy behavior has been a target of congressional Republicans only as a means to smear his father, and especially never mind that Trump himself has threatened to go after the “Biden crime family” and has promised to punish his enemies with hammer and tong as “retribution” for all the attempts to hold him accountable for his actual crimes and for the crime of criticizing him. Presumably he is the only presidential candidate who has overtly made “retribution” against “the enemies within”–i.e., his critics–a central campaign promise. And, for the morally blind, never mind that there is a monumental difference between pardoning hundreds of still dangerous violent and treasonous insurrectionists attempting a coup and a guy who lied on a gun application and who pled guilty to significant tax evasion. There’s no moral equivalence here, irrelevant of what Republicans will claim. (See my “The Necessity of Making Moral Distinctions.”) One might add not only Trump’s own years of consequence-free tax evasion but also that he had previously pardoned his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s father who was doing time for the same crime, a punishment that was not the result of a self-satisfying political vendetta.
So yes, once you drop the “never minds,” Joe has cost Democrats the moral high ground, at least on this issue, and his legacy is stained. I concede the point, not being quite willing to argue that the high ground is for chumps—though tempted to do so in this case, given what we know about Trump. If either Romney or McCain were the incoming president, I would even argue that Joe unequivocally did the wrong thing on both the personal and the practical-politics levels. But there is an element of sadism in Trump’s quest for revenge, and Joe Biden was certainly not oblivious to that.
Who, then, among Joe’s critics is willing to sacrifice his own son? You? Me? Sure, only to prison time,* not to death, but for once I’m not inclined to cast stones. For that ultimate sacrifice, if you’re a Jew, only Abraham was willing. If you’re a Christian, only Abraham and God. And God doesn’t exactly get off scot-free here either. It may have been noble of God to sacrifice his son, but it wasn’t at all noble for God, Trump-like, to put Abraham through the exquisite torture of almost having to kill his son, with the knife at Isaac’s neck, just so that God could bask in the self-mortifying submission he has demanded of, and received from, his poor servant.
*Hunter Biden was convicted of lying on a federal gun application, lying to a gun seller, and possessing a firearm as a drug user, with a possible sentence of twenty-five years, according to January 15, 2025 USA Today; he was also convicted of not paying millions in taxes over several years, which could have resulted in a maximum seventeen years. While no jail time at all was a possibility, had he received the maximum sentences to be served consecutively, he would have likely served the rest of his life in prison for non-violent crimes. It should be noted that Trump’s likely tax evasion over multiple years did not even result in a criminal charge, much less a trial and conviction.
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