Turn The Tables

And the winner of the Democratic debate on Tuesday night will be..... the candidate who (almost) follows Jennifer Rubin's advice. The pro-Biden, pro-Buttigieg neo-conservative columnist writes

Biden’s campaign has yet to call for the Trump children to take the same pledge as Hunter Biden, but it really should consider going on offense. Ivanka, Jared, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are the poster children for familial corruption.

Tuesday’s debate is the perfect forum for Democrats to end the double standard that serves to shelter the Trump clan from scrutiny for continuing to perpetrate massive conflicts and self-dealing while targeting Joe Biden and his son, who have done the right thing in promising to raise the bar on ethics if Biden wins. It would be a good idea for all the Democratic candidates to promise that their own adult children will follow Hunter Biden’s example. Most important, it is time to shame the media and Congress into investigating the corruption going on as we speak. Ivanka, Jared, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. have been given the kid glove treatment by the media and Congress (the latter for fear of generating sympathy for the Trump offspring!). That needs to end.

Rubin is responding to the report from Bloomberg that "Hunter Biden is stepping down from the board of a Chinese-backed private equity company and promising to forgo all foreign work if his father, former U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, is elected president in 2020.”

Before we lionize Hunter (or Joe) Biden, we must acknowledge that Hunter, a lawyer and hedge fund manager, had no experience pertaining to Ukraine when he took the $50,000 per month position as a member of the Board of Directors of a fossil fuel company.   He was tapped for one reason and one reason only and thereby jammed up his father, who had not foreclosed the possibility of running for President of the United States of America... against a guy who rails about "the swamp."

Nonetheless, GOP charges against Joe Biden pertaining to Burisma are false and reprehensible, and demonstrably so. Thus, it is time for the Democratic candidates, and the debate an ideal time for one Democratic candidate, to support the Bidens. That would not be Hunter Biden,  who was no juvenile, and while children are not responsible for the sins of their fathers, a father is not responsible for the sin of his adult son.

The candidate would benefit by promptly, at the earliest possible moment, making it clear that he (or she, of whom there are fewer) differs on several matters with the former vice-president but not on this. It would be done- as Rubin seems to understand- not by playing defense but by going on offense. Hunter Biden may be a bad seed- but Donald Jr. and Ivanka are definitively stinking, rotten seeds.

As Rubin implies, the Trump family has set records for greed, self-dealing, and endangering national security by pursuing business ahead of the national interest. Additionally,  she argues, the Trumps "have been given the kid glove treatment by the media and Congress (the latter for fear of generating sympathy for the Trump offspring!). That needs to end."

Go ahead, Democrats: criticize the media.  It's a classic of the GOP playbook, a tried-and-true strategy. Observing this, Democrats have been conned into thinking that journalists and media personalities are their own friends.  Perhaps in part for this reason, the Democratic National Committee, stung by criticism that it put its thumb on the scale for its leading candidate in the 2016 primary season, has been largely,unforgivably, silent.  

But when thrown a hanging curve, swing. Criticizing the media simply is not done by Democratic politicians or interests groups. There is a hungry constituency, one waiting for Democrats to stand up for themselves as a party, a unit, and in this case, a family.

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