If Biden Were a Republican
Article publisher:
National Review
Article date:
8 October 2020
Article category:
National News
Medium
Article Body:
If Biden Were a Republican - Here’s what the press would be asking the former veep.
Mr. Biden, you have a history of cultivating disturbingly close relationships with white supremacists.
As segregationists were dying off in the 1970s, you went out of your way to be pals with them, then bragged about it. You once called notorious segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond “one of my closest friends.” In 1988, when you were mounting a run for president that collapsed when your multiple acts of plagiarism came to light, you deployed a dog whistle when you bragged that the arch-racist former Alabama governor George Wallace had given you a leadership award in 1973. Also in 1988 you noted approvingly that the press would refer to you and Thurmond as the “marvelous marriage” and “the odd couple.” You later delivered a eulogy at Thurmond’s funeral in 2003.
You once told Mississippi senator John Stennis, a racist opponent of school desegregation, that you viewed him as a “hero” and were honored to take over his office after he retired. In 2010 you gave a eulogy at the funeral of Senator Robert Byrd, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan whom you called “a dear friend.” As recently as 2008 you were still bragging that you had “deep personal relationships” with segregationist senators James Eastland, Stennis, and Thurmond, and said, “All these men became my friends.” As recently as 2016 you fondly recalled that you welcomed the assistance of Stennis in one of your Senate reelection campaigns even though Stennis once said, “Those who would mix little children of both races in our schools are following an illegal, immoral, and sinful doctrine.” Isn’t your record of supporting these avowed white supremacists disturbing, disgusting, and disqualifying?...
...Are you seriously arguing that Hunter Biden was hired by the Ukrainians and paid $3.4 million for his energy expertise, of which he has none, rather than as a backdoor way of influencing you and United States policy toward Ukraine?...
Mr. Biden, in December 2013 you took your son Hunter with you on Air Force Two to China, where he promptly introduced you to a businessman named Jonathan Li. Li’s company later gave Hunter a 10 percent stake in an investment fund that now manages some $2 billion...
Mr. Biden, while you were vice president in 2010 your brother Jimmy, who had no experience in the construction industry, nevertheless formed a construction company that a few months later was granted a $1.5 billion contract to build housing in Iraq....
Mr. Biden, in a recent interview Hillary Clinton said “Joe Biden should not concede under any circumstances.” Do you repudiate this chilling threat to our democratic order and should you lose, will you vow to concede defeat, call for peace and acceptance, and emphasize to your supporters that Donald Trump continues to be the duly elected president of the United States?...
Mr. Biden, you have not released medical records since 2008. Dr. David Scheiner, who was Barack Obama’s personal physician for many years, reviewed your records and said, “He’s not a healthy guy.” ...
This fall you have on many occasions “called a lid,” or shut down all operations for the day, by 9 a.m. Shouldn’t the American people be worried about your health and your lack of transparency about it? Can you really say with a straight face that you have the stamina for the world’s toughest job when you keep retiring for the day at 9 a.m.?...
Mr. Biden, there’s been a lot of discussion in Washington about breaking norms these last few years. You have repeatedly refused to answer whether you would sign a bill that would upend the structure of the Supreme Court as we know it and shatter a 151-year norm.... By not forswearing the various extremist schemes to pack the Supreme Court, don’t you constitute by far the greatest threat to American norms in memory?...