“Louche” is an old-fashioned but useful word popular in the 1920s. It means someone disreputable but nevertheless has a fashionable appeal, like 1920s artsy types who experimented with weird drugs and sex but were beloved among sophisticates. That word came to mind when reading a New York Times essay about Hunter Biden as an “ironic icon” and “antihero.” The Times grudgingly acknowledges that he’s neither but tries to rebrand him as a reformed middle-aged man.
Even before 2020, everyone knew Hunter Biden had serious drug addiction problems. He was kicked out of the Navy and rolled in and out of addiction programs. It was also public knowledge that, after his brother, Beau, died of cancer, Hunter had an affair with Beau’s widow, Hallie. That’s creepy.
Our knowledge expanded when Hunter abandoned his computer with a repairman. Now that he owned the computer, the repairman was so disturbed by its contents (which suggested that the Democrat candidate had a son who was a national security problem) that he handed it over to the FBI, which did nothing. He then took it to Rudy Giuliani, and from there, it became public.
Next Stay What Hunter’s hard drive revealed was a man louche in the extreme. He was a serious crack addict, a cocaine addict, a sex addict, a prostitute addict, a man whose own family warned him away from being around his teenage relatives, and someone who was traveling to the world’s corrupt countries selling access to his politician father.
Image: Hunter Biden. YouTube screen grab.
If you met Hunter, you wouldn’t just want to wash your hands after shaking his hand. Instead, you’d want to step into the kind of sterilizing shower used for Hazmat situations. This is a morally reprehensible person at every level, and it’s hard not to imagine that, at one time or another, he’s been home to every sexually transmitted germ known to humankind.
Yet, according to the Times, Hunter has an anti-hero cult following. The essay acknowledges that Americans don’t like Hunter, and it ever so gently describes his failings. His laptop contents were “leaked,” which implies they were stolen. (They were not.) He had “wild-eyed benders,” which understates his crack-smoking orgies with prostitutes. The article also glides by Joe’s role in Hunter’s influence peddling by acknowledging only that “nearly three out of four [Americans] believe [Hunter] personally profited from his father’s positions in government.” It’s as if Joe’s 29,000-plus emails never happened.
But “there are others — more than you might think, and for different reasons — who find the man in the laptop photos oddly alluring.” We’re then treated to stories of people who like louche but, as the Times hastily reminds us, they’re overstating how bad Hunter is:
“His lifestyle is super cool because he gets to do all the coke and crack he wants,” said one of the hosts on a recent episode of “Wet Jeans,” a lad-culture podcast. “And he gets to live in a home in like, Calabasas,” referring to the gilded enclave north of Los Angeles.
“He’s using taxpayer money to like, fund hookers and his ketamine habit,” his co-host responded, excitedly. “I was thinking about it and I was like dude, I really … love this guy.”
The Times makes sure to correct the record:
The “Wet Jeans” hosts don’t have their facts straight. Mr. Biden lives in Malibu; taxpayer money pays for his Secret Service detail but not his personal life; he says he has been sober since 2019; his ketamine use came as part of one of his many attempts at rehab.
See? Hunter’s a reformed character. The fact that he has no gainful employment and lives in homes that run to tens of thousands a month? Meh! His claimed sobriety is proof of virtue. And please focus on the legal ketamine and ignore all the other stuff.
The whole article is like that. It describes the weird fringe people who admire Hunter and then offers watered-down explanations for Hunter’s debauchery and immorality. We hear that he “briefly dated the widow of his older brother, Beau,” without mentioning that they were also stone- cold crack addicts during that time. To the Times, Biden is just really a guy with “creeping baldness and conspicuous veneers, a middle-aged nepo-baby.” From there, we head into a rumination about the deeper meaning of bad boys in American culture.
You get the feeling that the Times thinks that, by acknowledging some of the bad stuff, he can hide the scope of how disgusting Hunter is. Of course, it’s not just Hunter who’s disgusting. The whole family is.
Joe sniffs children, grabs women, and has been credibly accused of sexual assault. He was also really weird in talking about his first wife. His daughter, Ashley, hints in her diary that Joe was sexually inappropriate with her, possibly sparking her own sex and drug problems. Daughter-in-law Hallie had a drugged-out affair with her brother-in-law. Even their dogs are warped.
Hunter is not an icon or an anti-hero. He’s a horrible human being. He is also a living, walking crime spree who has been protected his entire life from the legal consequences his conduct deserves. His role in the Biden family speaks of moral and financial corruption that should never have been allowed near the White House.