The New York Times is taking President Joe Biden to task. But it isn’t over politics that has caused the Times to break rank with the liberal lockstep. It is over family. And specifically, the issue of Hunter Biden’s daughter Navy, whom his presidential father has refused to recognize as part of the Biden clan.
“My sister and I often disagree about politics, but this is not a political issue to us,” writes Maureen Dowd. “It’s a human one.”
“Joe Biden’s mantra has always been that ‘the absolute most important thing is your family’,” she continued. “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’,” she added. “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.”
“What the Navy story reveals is how dated and inauthentic the 80-year-old president’s view of family is,” Dowd adds.
The New York Times’ story surprised some media observers, who did not expect the publication to take Biden to task over the family controversy.
Wow.@MaureenDowd is usually just a political pain-in-the-ass.
So (big) cheers to her (and her sister) for the moral clarity in penning this non-political, principled @NYTimes opinion piece.
It’s Seven Grandkids, Mr. President https://t.co/c9AN1ISSOY
— ?? Mike Davis ?? (@mrddmia) July 8, 2023
“Every American knows that Joe Biden should have done the right thing years ago and acknowledged ALL of his grandchildren. It is cold, heartless, selfish, and cowardly that the President of the United States can’t show love or compassion to his beautiful granddaughter.” pic.twitter.com/g8AYlPngsP
— JLaw (@yoopermomma) July 8, 2023
Say her name @POTUS
Navy Joan Roberts Biden pic.twitter.com/IW0VwMFldq
— Stephanie ?? (@StephHoover8) July 8, 2023
The Biden family imbroglio has even occasioned criticism from moderates and independents.
Politics aside, Joe Biden’s refusal to have anything to do with his granddaughter, and his demands that everyone who work in the White House avoid any mention of her, is absolutely repellent.
I honestly don’t understand how someone can get themselves to do that: https://t.co/Kc9Mb9YOBU
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 2, 2023
Genuinely can’t wrap my head around the callousness of Pres. Biden refusing to acknowledge his granddaughter. This will be a real issue. People understand Hunter’s battle w/addiction, they don’t understand mistreating an innocent child. https://t.co/HouYSYd3Eg
— Alyssa Farah Griffin (@Alyssafarah) July 8, 2023
Earlier in July, White House aides were reportedly told not to say the actual number of grandchildren President Joe Biden has, the Daily Caller reported. They were also instructed to omit the child Hunter Biden had out of wedlock.
