Why did Joe Biden not keep his promise? His son still deserves justice

Just once. Just once, amid all the times that reporters asked President Joe Biden whether he would give a pardon to his son Hunter, who was facing a possible federal prison sentence, I wish I could have heard Jolly Joe give the sort of response that the late Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley offered to such unwelcome questions.

- Clarence Page

I'm thinking of the time in the 1970s, still remembered by old-timers like me, when Daley jousted with reporters' questions about his efforts to steer city insurance contracts to his sons.

To anyone who thinks a father can't help his sons, he responded, according to various accounts, something to the effect of "There's a mistletoe hanging on my coattails."

In other words, mind your beeswax. Such was the simplicity of "the Chicago Way."

In those days, nepotism was not such a dirty word. It was, in words also attributed to Mayor Daley, a way for a public servant to "put his arms around his sons and help them." Or to solidify an alliance, such as by hiring the offspring of a peer alderman or county board member.

Compared to those standards, Joe Biden took quite a risk to his reputation when he repeatedly made a promise to refrain from interfering in Hunter's federal case, despite his constitutional right as president to pardon people of crimes. The president probably would have been better off by letting his pardon power speak for itself without making promises he could not keep.

Historians will no doubt explore what Joe Biden was thinking--in promising not to involve himself in the case against Hunter. But for now, it's not hard to imagine that the president saw himself standing on firmer ground before Trump's re-election changed the outlook for Hunter Biden's fortunes.