Hey Joe . . . Here's The Deal

Joe Biden’s pardon of son Hunter has generated a veritable feast of commentary. Being of a certain age and disposition, I have consumed more than my fair share.

By my rough reckoning, the “formal” view - that of legal experts and Op Ed folks - splits about 75%/25% in favor of variations on “He’s tarnished his legacy.”

By contrast, the popular/common commenter take is about 85%/15% in favor of variations on “You go, Joe!”

The naysayers cite the importance of the rule of law and reject the tit-for-tat arguments in favor of “two wrongs don’t make a right.” Clearly it’s more complex than that sentence but . . .

The yaysayers accurately predict Trump pardons for insurrectionists and the comparatively minor nature of Hunter’s transgressions. This too is over-simplified but. . .

I have sympathy for both arguments, but settle on the “You go,Joe!” side.

But my admittedly meaningless support comes with a caveat, which I shall pivot to in a moment.

My empathy has a slightly different slant. Hunter’s fate is of minor interest. Tens of thousands of less privileged men and women languish in prison for equal or lesser offenses than Hunter’s. His apparent sobriety, remorse, and restitution are mitigating, but would not be pardon-worthy if he weren’t Joe’s son.

But my empathy is with Joe, not Hunter. His life has been repeatedly shattered by cruel turns. His first wife and one year-old daughter were killed in a terrible crash, leaving a suicidal Joe to care for two toddler boys, Hunter and Beau.

Joe himself had a serious, near-fatal aneurysm and pulmonary embolism, requiring many months of recovery and rehabilitation. Then his beloved son Beau died of glioblastoma at the age of 46 in 2015.

I have mixed feelings about his political career and presidency, but the man is decent and has endured more than most. The relentless partisan attacks on Hunter and him have been largely without foundation and he has faced them with more dignity than I could muster.

The recent spotlight on his age and possible cognitive decline must be extraordinarily painful. I wince if my wife has to remind me to pick up the mail. And the final injury following the cascading insults was being forced to step aside, another personal disappointment he managed with uncommon grace.

So legacy and high-minded allusion to rule of law be damned. The man has earned peace in his “retirement,” and peace would be elusive if his son was endlessly harassed by amoral hacks and possibly incarcerated for victimless crimes.

I pivot.

If Joe Biden hopes to walk away with honor and the emotional peace he deserves, he owes more than a pardon or “pardon me” to the 42,000 innocent civilians slaughtered in Gaza with the armaments he facilitated. Many thousands of the victims are small children, like the dead daughter for whom he mourned. The buffer of distance and yielding to political pressure does not make those children any less dead. Each one of them left a horrible void, a compounded terror manyfold greater than Biden’s singular agony.

He can’t reverse history, so this genocidal reality will leave a stain on his legacy far darker than pardoning his son. While he can’t erase it, he can regain a modicum of self-respect by doing everything in his power to stop the killing now.

Benjamin Netanyahu has been charged with crimes against humanity and a warrant for his arrest was issued by the International Criminal Court. Biden has escaped such direct consequences, but it can and has been argued that the United States is criminally complicit.

Can Biden unilaterally stop supplying arms? The Supreme Court seems to believe he and his looming successor can do whatever the hell they want.

International law suggests that current U.S. policy is a violation of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. By being a member, the U.S. is violating the Arms Trade Treaty, the European Union’s Common Position on Arms Exports, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s Principles Governing Conventional Arms Transfers.

Providing weapons in support of genocide is a crime and moral abomination.

So, as Joe would say, here’s the deal.

We will understand and support your understandable choice to save your son and lend you peace . . . if you also make the harder choice to save many thousands of Palestinian mothers and fathers from unspeakable grief.

It’s not too late for partial redemption.