To avoid NYT directly, the link is PoliticalWire:
politicalwire.com/…
I certainly expected Biden would come back at Trump guns blazing and exploiting the “how dare you bring my family into this” theme that reliably results in sympathetic backlash, at least short term. But lo, we find an all too familiar situation:
Mr. Biden and his advisers debated whether to mount a fierce counterattack or to stick to a set of policy arguments he had been planning to roll out.
That should not be a tough decision. You need to defend yourself and your “family” (fact is Hunter Biden is really a loose cannon here and his actions weren’t admirable, but they have been vetted and were legal, and Joe Biden was never vested in the business with his adult son). You also need to show that when attacked in that manner you don’t let it go unanswered because, you are trying to become President, and you may need to act that decisively to “defend the country” that way. Clinton and Obama showed they understood that; Dukakis did not in 1988, and Kerry acted much later than he needed to to prevent the swiftboat attacks against him from hurting his campaign until the very end.
Mr. Biden himself was equivocating: He wanted to defend and protect his son, but he also believed the president was baiting him into a dirty fight.
But Mr. Biden has also been telling us he wants to “fight the school bully Trump” and when given the opportunity to show “fire in the belly” he didn’t see what should have been obvious: He needed to defend and protect his son (again Hunter’s actions as an adult should not even be laid upon Joe, and he did actually act against his son’s interests in Ukraine, but perceptions are what matters) because at some point, he may need to defend and protect us.
And as a lifelong adherent to congressional tradition, Mr. Biden was wary of acting hastily as an impeachment inquiry was getting underway.
Understandable, yet current members of congress also running for President have not found it necessary to refrain from pointing out the obvious: There is already enough evidence to impeach and remove Trump. Deferring judgment further isn’t needed.
