The network newscasts and national newspapers greeted the Hunter Biden verdicts with sappy pictures and talk of "family turmoil."
The Washington Post lamented the trial "put on national display the first family’s pain, heartache and regrets." The New York Times called it "a shattering blow for the Biden family in the middle of an unforgiving presidential election campaign," with Hunter's struggles "made painfully public."
No one can be allowed to say that Joe and Jill Biden are bad parents, enablers of bad behavior. Hunter Biden is 54, and the network anchors still called him a "child" of the president, which is a bit of a stretch. No one wants to blame the parents after all this time, but clearly Joe Biden's help for Hunter's influence-peddling business brought money to this son, which then went to drugs and hookers.
On their front pages, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post all put color pictures of the president hugging Hunter or Hunter holding the First Lady's hand outside the courtroom to put a warm family spin on the bad day. The New York Post featured Joe hugging hunter, but the big headline was "FIRST FELON."
Politico's PM Playbook played up "deep pain" for Biden:
The result is “sure to be a source of deep pain for the president, who has long worried about the impact of the case on his only surviving son,” our colleagues Betsy Woodruff Swan and Josh Gerstein write from Wilmington. “The president fears not only that his son may be incarcerated, but also that the case could imperil his sobriety.”
The Washington Post had a second story on the front page by Matt Viser with that take, the personal pain! Headline: “for the president a personal toll, if not a political one.”
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