Two days after Special Counsel Robert Hur released his now infamous report that included disparaging political comments about Joe Biden’s age and memory, First Lady Jill Biden wrote these words:
“The reason I’m writing is because of what else was in the report: Inaccurate and personal political attacks about Joe. Rather than just saying the case was closed, as they have for others, the Special Counsel claimed that Joe ‘couldn’t remember the year his son died.’ Believe me, like anyone who has lost a child, Beau and his death never leave him.
“I hope you can imagine how it felt to read that attack — not just as Joe’s wife, but as Beau’s mother.
“I don’t know what this Special Counsel was trying to achieve. We should give everyone grace, and I can’t imagine someone would try to use our son’s death to score political points. If you’ve experienced a loss like that, you know that you don’t measure it in years — you measure it in grief.
“May 30th is a day forever etched on our hearts. It shattered me, it shattered our family.
So many of you know that feeling after you lose a loved one, where you feel like you can’t get off the floor. What helped me, and what helped Joe, was to find purpose. That’s what keeps Joe going, serving you and the country we love.”
Like Jill Biden, I don’t know what Hur was trying to achieve in making his comments. What we do know is that he gratuitously betrayed common decency in using President Biden’s loss of his son, Beau, in the way that he did.
No decent person would do such a thing. Reminded me of Trump mocking disabled New York Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski, at a South Carolina rally during the 2016 campaign (Kovaleski has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting his joints).
Apparently, Trump and Hur are cut from the same piece of morally corrupted cloth.
Jill Biden tried to rise above the indignity her husband suffered. “We should give everyone grace,” she wrote, then added, “I can’t imagine that anyone would use our son’s death for political advantage.”
Maybe Robert Hur would tell her that it was not his intention to do that, but it would be difficult to believe him. A better read is that he knew exactly what he was doing, and for all practical purposes became a Trump political hit man in the process. How does anyone go that low?
It is not often that a person faces a moment that defines them for the rest of their lives. Robert Hur faced such a moment and failed the moral character test as badly as anyone could, something that now defines him as a person.
Because of who Donald Trump is and his intention to become president again, such is the moment every adult American is also facing.
The grace we have been given is that we have more than enough time to consider the moral and political consequences of how we will vote in November that will define us for the rest of our lives.
Just as Jill Biden couldn’t imagine anyone using the death of their son for political advantage, I cannot imagine any decent American using Joe Biden’s age as an excuse for electing Trump.
Jill Biden explained why when she said, “Joe is 81, that’s true, but he’s 81 doing more in an hour than most people do in a day. Joe has wisdom, empathy, and vision. He has delivered on so many of his promises as President precisely because he’s learned a lot in those 81 years. His age, with his experience and expertise, is an incredible asset and he proves it every day.”
The truth is, Biden’s age is not the issue in this campaign. After all, Trump is only four years younger and far more out of shape physically and mentally than Joe Biden.
Instead, the real issue is what kind of person will we choose to represent us as our President, a decision that is the most consequential moment our country has faced since the Civil War.
Will America be defined by the kind of man Donald Trump is, or will it be defined by the kind of man Joe Biden is.
Honestly, given everything we know about both, I cannot for the life of me imagine anyone choosing the former over the latter.
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