Hunter Biden is Not the Story
Either Biden or Trump will nominate the next Supreme Court Justice(s)
Issue #637 The Choice, Thursday, June 13, 2024
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Hunter Biden is Not the Story
A few days ago, Hunter Biden was convicted on three charges of lying on a form required to purchase a gun in 2018 when he checked the “no” box that asked if he was “an unlawful user of, or addicted to,” drugs. That lie permitted him to buy the gun that he owned for 11 days. That same day, his father, President Joe Biden, issued the following statement in support of his son on behalf of the Biden family:
“I am the president, but I am also a dad. Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today. So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride in seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery. As I…said last week, I will accept the outcome of this case and will continue to respect the judicial process as Hunter considers an appeal. Jill and I will always be there for Hunter and the rest of our family with our love and support. Nothing will ever change that.”
That is the end of the story, and all there is to it. A father’s son went through a dark time in his life. Unlike too many others, he fortunately has managed to elevate himself out of that situation. But he was nevertheless forced to pay a certain price – an excessive and politically-motivated price due to the identity of his father, some might argue – that will force him to face certain consequences for his actions. But even if it’s true that Hunter Biden’s punishment was politically motivated and he would not have received nearly such a harsh sentence was he not Joe Biden’s son, the fact would remain that this is a story about a man who was wrongfully convicted of a minor crime.
Gee. How incredibly newsworthy. So newsworthy in fact, that both The Washington Post and The New York Times led their online coverage with the story. Followed, of course, by all sorts of deep analysis and commentary about how this verdict might hurt the president, the toll this verdict is taking on the president, etc. Because, of course, this is such an incredibly important story that has such an impact on so many American lives.
Meanwhile, further down the page – a ways further – was the continuously breaking story about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who was apparently recorded on tape at some fancy shindig affair commenting to a woman posing as a sympathetic conservative that he thinks the nation should “return to Godliness” and other comments that clearly and openly demonstrate his support of rightwing causes.
This is not to say that the other justices don’t also harbor opinions about certain issues that would be regrettable to a certain segment of the population. No human being is a blank slate except at birth. But at least they have enough sense not to go spouting those views all over the place. At least they can pretend to be impartial when it comes to justice.
Alito is done pretending, which would also explain his near-comical defense of (and blame of – his wife) for flying white supremacist flags at the Alito residence. This incident happened just last week.
It would be unfair and loading the dice to say that the media did not cover Alito’s screwups because they did. There were a decent number of stories and commentary – pro and con – discussing what it means for a Supreme Court Justice to behave like Alito, and with no remorse or apparent awareness that this could be wrong, even though the Supreme Court’s own Code of Ethics clearly states that “justices should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary; avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety; perform their duties fairly, impartially, and diligently; engage in extrajudicial activities that are consistent with the obligations of the judicial office.”
But the breathless, salivating mainstream media coverage of Hunter Biden’s conviction quickly shoved any journalistic concern about a corrupt Supreme Court justice into the shadows. Nevermind the fact that the story about Hunter Biden is essentially a non-story, and would have remained a non-story that probably would have resulted in significantly lighter charges for Hunter Biden if the MAGA-controlled Republican Party had not continued to scream, shout, wave their arms and stomp their feet insisting that Bidengate was a raging fire threatening to burn down the nation, and very possibly divorce America from Justice Alito’s white Christian Nationalist version of Godliness, despite the absence of any smoke or flames.
But regardless of the lack of any real visible evidence that this was anything more than a routine story of one man’s poor choices in life, the media eagerly hopped on board reporting the overheated Republican charges that this was evidence and proof positive that The Biden Crime Family is a real thing to be taken seriously. No, the media did not actually endorse this ridiculous charge. They merely took the time to repeat these and other charges again and again and again, which of course gave the story more and more oxygen. Until, like a massive zeppelin blocking out the sun, it was a story that was simply too big to ignore - and too big not to hype.
So then what we have here, to quote a line from one of my favorite movies of all time, Cool Hand Luke, “…is a failure to communicate.” A failure to communicate the news in a way that reflects what should be obvious; a possibly corrupt Supreme Court Justice with white supremacist sympathies, and a longing for a nation that falls in line with conservative rightwing Christian teachings, is a far more important story than the son of a president who struggled with drug dependency that caused him to make poor decisions and is now paying the price for that.
There is simply no equivalency here whatsoever. None. One is an above-the-fold, alarm-ringing headline, and the other is a bottom-of-the-page “oh and then there’s this” type of story. A story that I admit has to be reported because Hunter Biden is the President’s son, and therefore there’s no way this could slide under the radar. But not a story that in any way rivals the threat to our entire judicial system posed by Alito.
If the media can’t tell the difference, then I think we may just have a problem.
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