The Biden Saga (like the Clinton Saga before it) is drama worthy of Euripides, complete with a chorus of "journalists" hiding behind improbable masks of impartiality.
I want to start by saying, I do not think Mr. Biden has ever directly profited by his office. Any office. Nor Mr. Trump. Nor Mr. Obama. Nor any other politician in modern times. They are all too smart for that. The days of slipping some cash or a few plane tickets into a pol's pocket for a favor are nostalgically quaint; like happy black servants grinning on pancake mix packages and instant rice boxes.
No, pols are smarter these days. Why risk loosing power and influence with a direct bribe when an indirect bribe is so much easier to accomplish and fully legal. And they know its fully legal of course; because they wrote the laws.
And I am not picking on Mr. Biden here (although he is the most recent, and in-light of his son's emerging tax problems, the most germane) there are plenty of plum positions for the taking, and we'll get into them; but for now, let's look at Mr. Biden.
Ask yourself this question. How far do you think Hunter Biden's career would have gone if his father had not been a U.S. Senator? Here is an excerpt from the Wikipedia article mentioned above (I am leaving the follow-on links in place) regarding his early career:
After law school, Biden accepted a position at bank holding company MBNA America, a major contributor to his father's political campaigns.[3] By 1998, Biden had risen to the rank of executive vice president[3][8] and left to serve at the United States Department of Commerce until 2001, focusing on ecommerce policy.[9] Biden became a lobbyist in 2001, co-founding the firm of Oldaker, Biden & Belair.[10] According to Adam Entous of The New Yorker, Biden and his father established a relationship in which "Biden wouldn't ask Hunter about his lobbying clients, and Hunter wouldn't tell his father about them."[3] In 2006, Biden and his uncle James Biden attempted to buy hedge-fund group Paradigm, but the deal never materialized.[3] That same year, Hunter Biden was appointed to a five-year term on the board of directors of Amtrak by President George W. Bush.[11] Biden was the board's vice chairman from July 2006 until 2009; he resigned in February 2009,[12][13] leaving both roles shortly after his father became vice president. Biden said during his father's vice presidential campaign that it was time for his lobbying activities to end.[3]
Now, Hunter was a Georgetown graduate which is no charm school, so he obviously had talent; no question there. But let's glance at his early resume: 1. A company that was a major contributor to his dad's campaign. 2. A government agency. 3. A lobbying firm and, as an added bonus, an appointment by George Bush to a five-year term on the Board of Amtrak, three-years of which, he was vice-chairman.
Once dad became vice president, he left all that beltway falderal behind him, and set sail for foreign adventures in the exciting energy industry. One has to wonder if he didn't call Al Gore to ask for advice on the subject, since that former vice president had a long history with Occidental Petroleum.
Was any of this illegal? No, probably not. Although I'm not an attorney, I would be willing to bet my Richard Nixon1968 campaign button that every "i" was dotted and every "t" was crossed. Why resort to the nonsense of a"third class burglary" when you have at your fingertips the entire federal code, control of ethics regulations, and the full force of the the IRS at your back?
This is where the real criminality comes in; we the public. We keep grinding out lawyers who keep grinding out ways to mince and parse the law. We do not demand that to keep congress out of mischief, their sessions should be limited to ninety days and ONLY ninety days unless they are called back into session by the president. We choose to focus on legality rather than ethics; the letter rather than the spirit of the law.
Do I care what the son of a president does for a living? Yes. There was a time when those in public office often worried about what their family members did for a living, as it reflected poorly on the office-holder. Was this fair? Probably not, but that's the price you pay for being in politics; live with it. And though I feel term limits are a violation of free-speech (including the two-term limit of the presidency) I also believe public service should not be lucrative. Not even profitable; but lucrative.
If we want to raise the value of our public servants and be truly egalitarian, let's apply the same template to them as we do to our military members. We have tons of desolate space in the District of Columbia, let's build a few apartment buildings where our congress members can spend their ninety days in comfort and luxury in a four room apartment. We can even rent them out on Air B and B the other nine-months of the year. Same for our cabinet secretaries, but here, we could build some nice housing, much like the officer's housing found on military posts or bases. With housing provided and perhaps a standard military allowance for per diem for food, there would be little need for a salary; or a pension for that matter. It's one thing giving the president and vice president a pension; as a matter of fact, the president should be given a pension just slightly higher than that of the highest flag-officer since he or she was the commander in chief of the armed forces; but congress people on pension? Please!
I know the argument that comes next. If you don't make public salaries competitive, you won't attract talent. So. The prestige of service was once compensation enough. We are a republic after all. Did our founders benefit from being away from their homes, families and businesses for years at a time? Nope. Some went right into bankruptcy (or close to it). We should expect nothing more or less than the level of sacrifice and compensation we demand and provide for our military. It is public service by the way. Remember? Service. They are the employees and we are the stockholders.
So then, what perks are acceptable for public service? The short answer is none. I have no issue with books and lecture tours, or for that matter, returning to one's original business or profession. Between his two presidential terms, Grover Cleveland resumed practicing law, and took the streetcar to work every day. But the idea of presidents or their families starting foundations, non-profits, PACs and all sorts of other"charities" with lush salaries and plenty of slush to slosh around, is unseemly, no matter how legal it might be. And that goes for boards of directorships of every shape and size. No matter how we look at it, it perpetrates an aristocracy whether we choose to call it one or not.
So a simple rule regarding ethics and influence peddling may be just as fundamental as this: if it looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, and quacks like a duck; it's probably a duck. No matter how many statutes, court rulings, and ethics reviews say it is a swan.
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