In case you missed the key line, I’ll print it again:They said it was decided at the time that he would publicly say he would not pardon his son even though doing so remained on the table.Astonishing.
To his credit, Andrew C. McCarthy called it months ago:
There was never a scintilla of doubt that Biden would break his vow not to pardon Hunter once the election was over — as I said back in June when he made the vow. Then, in September, when Hunter suddenly pled guilty to all the charges right as his tax trial was about to start, I explained that this strategy made sense only if he knew he was getting a pardon and therefore had no incentive to negotiate a better plea deal — and I elaborated that the pardon would come after the election but before the sentencing dates so that, as a technical legal matter, Hunter would never be a convicted felon.
Totally spot on and in fact I remember his article about Hunter suddenly pleading guilty so he could get it over while Papa was still in the White House.
All that moral preening over the "rule of law" went down the drain:
Look, we don’t have to be heartless bastards about it. Many among us would opt to save a child from jail, even if it meant backtracking on all our fine moral grandstanding. But the problem is the Dems tied their political rectitude to Biden’s acceptance of the jury’s democratic deliberations. They used the Hunter case to morally distinguish themselves from the allegedly lawless bruisers of the Trump set. They swore, endlessly, that they would abide by the rules and restore normalcy to the Trump-rattled republic. And they didn’t. They ended up exploiting presidential power for personal favour to a degree Trump never did. Their claims to moral distinction lie in tatters. Their delusion of righteousness stands exposed as just that: a delusion. This is why this pardon matters.
As I've noted before, every speech and public utterance by Joe Biden is really just a testament to his superiority. That's why he sprinkles speeches with lines like "I'm the guy who [fill in the boast.] before waxing on about his father and growing up in Scranton. But I suspect even Dementia Joe realized the enormity of this move which is why he dumped it on a Sunday night and promptly flew to another continent.