Maureen Dowd: Hey, Joe, you actually have seven grandkids

Karen has written about the ongoing story about Hunter Biden’s child support. She has also pointed out that while all of this is happening, Joe Biden continues to talk about his six grandchildren, conveniently leaving out the grandchild the family has decided to ignore.

Earlier this month the NY Times published a story about the Biden families handling of all of this. While it takes a stab at blaming the right for covering the story  (because of course) the Times own coverage suggests there’s a strange disjuncture here. How does a man who claims family is everything write off a 4-year-old?

Though a trial planned for mid-July has been averted, people on both sides fear that the political toxicity surrounding the case will remain. Already, it has been extensively covered in conservative media, from Breitbart to Fox News, and conservative commentators assailed the Biden family after news of the settlement.

Both Hunter Biden, the privileged and troubled son of a president, and Ms. Roberts, the daughter of a rural gun maker, have allies whose actions have made the situation more politicized…

And then there is President Biden.

His public image is centered around his devotion to his family — including to Hunter, his only surviving son. In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren, according to two people familiar with the discussions…

In April, President Biden told a group of children that he had “six grandchildren. And I’m crazy about them. And I speak to them every single day. Not a joke.”

So yes it’s been largelythe right that has directly pointed out the apparent hypocrisy of this but today that changed a bit. Today, Maureen Dowd has a column making the same points many on the right have made. The focus of the column is her sister, Peggy, a Republican who became a fan of Joe Biden a decade ago. Peggy wrote a letter to Biden expressing her disappointment with him.

“As she grows up, knowing that her father and paternal grandparents wanted nothing to do with her,” Peggy wrote, “she will probably be able to see a video or two showing her half sister Naomi getting married on the South Lawn and you watching the fireworks on the balcony with little Beau. And if she misses that, there will be plenty of schoolmates to remind her that she wasn’t wanted. Kids can be mean that way.”…

“Mr. President, many years ago, you lost your daughter in a horrendous car accident,” Peggy continued. “I know you still carry that pain with you every day because I have watched your face when you speak about her. Please do not throw away your granddaughter.”

My sister and I often disagree about politics, but this is not a political issue to us. It’s a human one. Joe Biden’s mantra has always been that “the absolute most important thing is your family.” It is the heart of his political narrative. Empathy, born of family tragedies, has been his stock in trade. Callously scarring Navy’s life, just as it gets started, undercuts that. As Katie Rogers, a Times White House correspondent, wrote in a haunting front-page piece last weekend about Hunter’s unwanted child, Biden is so sensitive “that only the president’s most senior advisers talk to him about his son.” Rogers said that “in strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren.” Jill Biden dedicated her 2020 children’s book to the six grandchildren.

Dowd concludes, “The president’s cold shoulder — and heart — is counter to every message he has sent for decades, and it’s out of sync with the America he wants to continue to lead.”

I think she’s right that the optics of this undermine Joe Biden at a fundamental level. Since the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, most Americans say they are concerned about his age and his competence. Whether the economy is good or bad is partly out of his control (as it is partly out of the control of every president), but there too polls show people aren’t happy with him. If there’s anything Biden still has going for him it’s his image as a loving family man and father, someone willing to keep his son Hunter close when it would be politically easier to ship him off somewhere and keep him out of the spotlight. And yet Hunter’s daughter has been written off in a way that seems harsh, maybe even cruel given her age. If there’s a failure here it’s clearly Hunter’s failure. If Joe is willing to forgive that, and he is, why hold it against the kid, someone who did nothing wrong?

Unfortunately, not all of the readers seem to get it.

How this family chooses to handle this deeply personal, sensitive matter is absolutely none of our business. Period.

Another one:

I thought the “rule” for the press was that kids and grandkids are off limits. What just happened here, Maureen? We don’t know the whole story and we aren’t entitled to. Yet many readers feel entitled condemn Hunter and the family.

The point of that rule is to keep people from being cruel to children, not to insulate the family if they themselves are cruel to a child. Nothing about this is cruel to the girl, only to the adults who have pushed her away.

What a president does or does not do with his family is his business. We did not elect a grandfather, and he has no more responsibility to be a grandfather role model than a plumber or accountant or business executive.

Fine, then he should shut up about being a grandfather of six and about how family is the only thing that really matters. You can’t have it both ways.

But of course all of the Democrats who voted for Biden want it both ways. You can imagine what they would be saying if Trump or DeSantis had a 4-year-old grandchild who had been cut off by the family. It wouldn’t sound anything like ‘this is a family matter.’