I & I Editorial BoardAfter initially, and arrogantly, evading an appearance before Congress, President Joe Biden’s son testified Wednesday in a deposition the public was unable to watch. Voters deserve better. The testimony should have been fully open to the media, with microphones hot and cameras rolling.
Right from the top of Biden’s opening statement, the first son denied that he involved his father in his business.
“Not while I was a practicing lawyer, not in my investments or transactions domestic or international, not as a board member, and not as an artist. Never.”
In a wholly expected development, the media protected him as if he were one of their own.
Also entirely expected were his denials, and the contradictions of other witnesses’ statements. Not one person in this country anticipated otherwise, even those who are only superficially keeping up with the story.
There are limits to what can be gleaned from the black-and-white of a transcript or “readout,” and the favorable-to-the-administration media reports of the six-and-a-half hour testimony. Americans should have been able to see the Biden family unctuousness at work, to judge for themselves how much the word of a Biden means. Hunter’s smug disposition and his telling body language are material to the upcoming election. An open forum would have been informative to on-the-fence voters.
The smokey back-room conditions allowed the Democrats to freely put their misleading and rancid spin on the deposition. The ever-puerile Rep. Eric Swalwell of California claimed that “after six-plus hours of Hunter Biden testifying, we learned absolutely nothing,” and therefore “the Biden impeachment investigation is over and we just witnessed its last breath.”
But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, said that “when pressure was placed on Hunter Biden he swung back to being, you know, a poor, pitiful addict. And then when he wanted to brag about things he was the smartest and most successful businessman in the room.”
So which characterization is more accurate? We of course lean toward Greene’s description, because we’ve watched the Big Guy, Joe Biden, lie and lie and lie for decades, to bluster and exult in his own superiority. But who can say for sure without seeing the testimony for themselves?
When subpoenaed last year by the House Oversight Committee, Biden evaded the demand. He said he would comply only if the hearing was public because he did not trust the GOP in a private setting. Yet his team eventually agreed to a closed-door session as long as it would not be taped and the transcript would be promptly released. The GOP erred by not playing hardball. It should have demanded cameras and when Biden’s handlers refused, asked over and over “what is Hunter Biden trying to hide?”
Unless there are national security implications, holing up behind closed doors is no way to take care of the people’s business. This goes for occasions when Republicans are testifying in a hostile environment. Government must be conducted in the open, the disinfecting effect of sunlight sanitizing the process, as often as possible. A president’s son should feel the same pressure under the hot lights as any other witness would.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
The Republicans need to learn how to play hardball pretty quick. How many people in the public at large are going to read the transcript? Most likely only the journalists and pundits who will then tell America what to think. Yes, Americans were deprived again by the GOP taking a wrong turn.
Based on past and current “performances” the GOP won’t learn anything. They are constantly rolled and ridiculed by the Dems and the sad thing is, most don’t even realize it. as much as I wish, it will take a drastic change in leadership and party members before we learn to play hardball.
The Biden Circus travels on. Democrats eager to accept any single explanation to ignore a mountain of evidence against the Biden family. Republicans making mistake upon mistake in presenting something fundamentally simple but with helpfully/unhelpfully complex details if one is a D/R respectively. The Media, U of Penn, DOJ and FBI all providing cover — uncountable thumbs on the scales of justice.
Can’t hold a Democrat accountable? Then the country is over because without accountability the Democrats are free to enforce their new truths — silence all critics, remove all accountability via elections or the law, subvert education and science, force ruinous environmental and energy policies upon us, plunder what remains and blame Trump.
One of the first lessons a child should learn is when to know “the fix is in”.
Depositions are “behind closed doors” to prevent legislators grandstanding for the cameras and so other witnesses can’t watch and align their testimony. This is SOP to be followed by a public hearing.
The real arrogance is in people like Comer and Jordan, who persist in making unsupported claims even as their star witness admits to serving them Russian propaganda for their leads. There should be significant consequences against them both for using this as a political lever when they had no real proof.
The reason any Biden will get away with his/her “unctuousness” is because no one but Republicans and Conservatives- and some Independents- will take a look at reality and finally engage it.
Democrats and the MSM will always refuse to face reality. They all know Joe or Hunter or any Biden is guilty (there has been enough evidence and logical supposition to demonstrate this), but Trump is hated more than Joe.
It’s like the Russian Collusion. If any Biden is shown to be a swine, then the pro-Joe crown will have to admit to him/her self that he/she was wrong again. And then they’ll have to wonder why all the disinformation that they believed they believed. And then they’ll have to wonder about themselves.
You would think they’d be worried more about the future of their children, but ever since the greatest generation of WWII, the future children of the previous generations have been too spoiled to really care about their own children.
Ironically, it was the children of our greatest generation who were the first spoiled and overly pampered. More irony-it was the Depresson that provided the heat that would strengthen our greatest generation to win WWII.
Back to the Bidens. Mentally and emotionally the pampered generations would rather go down with the ship than admit to themselves that the ship is foundering due to the fact that the Biden’s steered it incorrectly. And they voted for Joe Biden!
So while usually people want to become doctors or lawyers or salesmen or mechanics or whatever. Joe’s goal was to game the system. He became a politician and began his games.
The public (through the government and our tax dollars) provided the playing field and so Joe began his big Con.
He (in my opinion) doesn’t care about the country or honor or “achieving for the public”. He’s always been a sociopathic narcissist. He was able to capitalize on this trait because other’s who voted for him believed in him-so they elected him.
He is not of Presidential caliber-but he is indeed a successful con-man.
And the many of the Democrats (and MSM) are his suckers. And we are all his victims.