ArcaMax

My brother-in-law recently sent a message to our family text chain, the members of whom rest somewhere on the political spectrum from solidly Democratic to more liberal than Mao Zedong.

What do we think of this?

He linked to a story about President Joe Biden pardoning his son, Hunter, who had been convicted on tax evasion and gun charges. Ever since the decision has been announced, the right wing (and much of the left wing) has gotten up in arms to protest it, for varying reasons.

Chief among their valid complaints is that Biden said he wouldn't issue such a pardon -- flatly ruling it out after the convictions. Democratic mouthpieces had crowed at the time that the decision showed how Biden respected the rule of law. They talked about how honorable he was. How self-sacrificing.

But they've been forced to eat those words, while Republicans have said the pardon shows evidence of corruption among Democratic politicians and the Biden administration as a whole.

For my part, I'm having trouble forming an opinion and even more trouble criticizing Biden for doing what virtually every parent would do in his situation.

Hunter Biden has been (and possibly still is) a deeply troubled man. His history of being addicted to drugs has been widely publicized. His back story -- of a mother and sister killed in the same car accident that left him with a fractured skull and traumatic brain injury -- is also well known.

I can see how Americans feel rage that Hunter Biden, a man who's spent his life in relative ease due to his parentage, is escaping legal consequences from his bad behavior thanks to the same accident of birth. I read the 56-page indictment on his tax charges, and they paint an image of Hunter Biden as someone who as recently as 2020 was capitalizing on his connections to prop up a drug-and-sex-fueled lifestyle replete with depravity. It's hard to feel too sorry for him.

But I've also read about many of the conversations Hunter Biden has had with the president, and they paint an equally compelling portrait of a father.

"Good morning my beautiful son," Joe Biden texted his son, who was in a drug rehab facility at the time. "I miss you and love you."

"You never gave up on me," Hunter Biden said he told his father upon informing him of his marriage in 2019. "You always believed in me."

Joe Biden is a parent the same way many of us are parents. We love our children completely, painfully and imperfectly. No matter how old they are, we retain the instinct to protect them -- from those who want to harm them, from themselves, sometimes even shielding them from danger to their detriment.

And Hunter Biden is in danger. The charges of which Hunter Biden was convicted were arguably more severe than those that someone with another last name would likely face. President-elect Donald Trump has promised a revenge tour once he takes office, and I think we should take him at his word. Clearly, the president is doing so.

Now, whether Hunter Biden would suffer fairly or unfairly under a new Trump administration is pure speculation, but Joe Biden isn't taking any chances, and I can sympathize. Trump has made wild promises on the campaign trail and just because he's reneged on some before doesn't mean he won't come through in this regard.

There's now talk that Biden may issue preemptive pardons to figures such as former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci and former Rep. Liz Cheney -- among others, clearly as part of another effort to protect these figures from unfair retribution.

Of course, it's true that these pardons make the pardonees' guilt seem a fait accompli. If they haven't done anything wrong, the argument goes, why would they need to be pardoned?

The truth is that we've all made mistakes, and presidential pardons are a way of saying that certain mistakes are understandable, that the person being pardoned is worthy of a second chance.

Joe Biden will always believe his son is worth a second chance.

He will forgive him, no matter how many mistakes he makes. No matter how many times he falls, his father will be there to pick him up.

Whether you or I or anyone else agrees doesn't really matter. Because even if we think it was wrong to pardon Hunter Biden for his crimes, many of us understand.

Clearing Hunter of his crimes wasn't the act of a president. It was the act of a father -- a flawed, loving father trying to do his best for his son. Even if it was a bad decision, it was the only one Joe Biden could make. And for that, I'll pardon him, too.

To learn more about Georgia Garvey, visit GeorgiaGarvey.com.

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