Prove It Ain’t So, Joe

Former Vice President Joe Biden is pursuing a life-long dream. Pushing eighty, Jurassic Joe is running for president for the third or fourth time in more than three decades. He’ll regret it.

If establishment Democrats passed on Biden twice or thrice before, why would the party’s politically-correct-, intersectional-, race-, gender- and #MeToo-obsessed primary voters support him now? After all, Joe is an old, Botox’d, heterosexual white guy with hair plugs, a creepy history of touching/smelling girls and, allegedly, swimming nude in front of female Secret Service agents.

Before promising to be “more mindful,” Biden addressed criticism of his touchy-feely proclivities by arguing, “in my career, I’ve always tried to make a human connection,” words wags immediately interpreted as “cop a feel.”

Tactility may be the least of Biden’s problems, though. Liberal blogger Josh Marshall pegged Biden as “at once an obvious choice and also unsuited to the moment in almost every way imaginable,” and, at Vox, progressive Matt Yglesias labeled Biden “…the Hillary Clinton of 2020.“

Writer John Kraushaar thinks Democrats have passed Joe by: “…[H]is long-ago opposition to busing, nuanced views on abortion rights, support for Bill Clinton’s…crime bill [Biden sponsored the “Three-Strikes” law], and treatment of Anita Hill during the Clarence Thomas hearings are being unearthed to raise questions about his standing in a fast-evolving Democratic Party. If Biden can’t defend his record… he’s badly misreading his moment.”

Plus, Biden’s 1988 campaign imploded over revelations of plagiarism; he’s “heavily-influenced” by the banking lobby; and Biden voted for the Iraq War and the Defense of Marriage Act.

But, Joe Biden’s greatest vulnerability is just emerging. Biden was picked as Barack Obama’s running mate for his years of Senate Foreign Relations Committee experience that Obama lacked.

In March, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair and others began publishing allegations that, only months after being discharged from the Navy for cocaine use, VP Biden’s son Hunter benefitted from sweetheart military, banking and business deals in China and the Ukraine designed to influence American policy, do Biden Senior’s bidding, or both.

Biden Junior accompanied his father on a diplomatic mission to China, where an inexperienced Hunter scored massive business deals from Chinese officials and the state-owned Bank of China, including acquiring interests in a Chinese nuclear company under FBI investigation.

The NY Times reported that Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian natural gas firm, paid Hunter Biden “as much as $50,000 per month” as a board member, even though he “lacked any experience in Ukraine…” Under Joe Biden’s leadership, $3 billion in U.S. aid went to Ukraine, $1.8 billion of which his son’s company was under investigation for mishandling.

Threatening loss of U.S aid, Biden boasted – on camera — about strong-arming the Ukraine into firing its chief prosecutor and closing the investigation into the missing cash.

Allegations of diplomatic interventions to enrich family are legitimate campaign issues. Simple denials won’t do. Democrats cannot defeat a president whose character they disparage with a man of dubious integrity.

Prove it ain’t so, Joe.

https://www.ldnews.com/story/opinion/2019/05/06/prove-aint-so-joe-opinion/1119802001/