The Hunter hunted

I don't normally comment on US politics here, unless it's relevant to something I'm writing about the US economy.  As a non-American I am cautious talking about a system of governance I still find hard to fathom, even though living just five miles from the border gives me a ringside seat. 

However, I just want to put down a few thoughts about the situation surrounding Hunter Biden.  It's striking to see the lengths to which CNN, in particular, is going in an effort to play down this feckless dolt's multitudinous transgressions and to minimize the possibility of any of this incriminating President Biden, even while admitting that there is plenty that just doesn't smell right.

The Biden camp admits that Joe Biden, while serving as Vice-President to Barack Obama, took part in phone calls with various actual or prospective business associates of Hunter. Yet supposedly, no business was ever discussed in these calls.  This stretches credibility an awfully long way, but let's assume for a second it's true. All that was discussed in these calls was the weather and the latest NFL odds.  

If that was indeed the case, what was the purpose of the calls?  It can only be an attempt by Hunter to use his father's exalted position to boost his own business prospects.  That's called influence peddling, and it worked: Hunter was paid a fat stipend to lend his name to a Ukrainian oil company, even though he likely could never have found Ukraine on a map and wouldn't know crude oil from Oil of Olay. 

If this was all indeed "only" influence peddling, what does that say about Joe Biden?  Shouldn't a man of his experience and in his exalted position have realized that this was a very ill-advised, indeed dumb thing to do?  It shouldn't take the wisdom of Solomon for Joe Biden to know that if any of this came out, it would make him look corrupt or at least stupid, neither of which is a good look for the most powerful man in the world.

Coming back to CNN for just a second, their take on the Republicans making so much of Hunter's problems and threatening to impeach President Biden is that it's just a ploy to divert attention from Donald Trump's mounting array of legal issues.  But you could equally look at it the other way round: it's only Trump's innumerable transgressions that make it possible for the Democrats to try to sweep the Biden family's issues under the rug.