Power in the family

I was pretty proud when my cousin moved into the White House Oval Office as one of Biden’s top advisers. With no thanks to me, the family has reached remarkable heights in this New World of ours. That includes another cousin who was the recipient of a Lifetime Academy Award, and other family members who became titans of industry.

To be quite honest, our family, which started American life in New Jersey, largely in Passaic and Paterson, and then in Newark and its suburbs, grew very large, and eventually branches evolved that hardly knew each other.

While I remember some attendance at weddings as a kid, I don’t know this Oval Office participant at all, and thus I never did get to ask him if our Maryland great-grandkids could get a private tour of the White House. Oh well.

Combined with pride in my family’s yichus is my concern that this cousin should not surface as one of the main Biden keepers. It has emerged, unsurprisingly and quite believably, that even early in his term, Biden was not really capable of executing the job he had won, to be leader of our nation, and that his advisers were providing him with a protective shield, in an attempt to keep his profound disabilities, his senescence, out of the sight of the nation’s citizens.

This became more and more obvious as time went on but was dramatically brought into view in the first, and only, Biden-Trump debate. There it became clear that Biden could not proceed with the campaign. Seeing the light, many millions of average Americans realized that something was terribly wrong and that the rumors that had long been rampant about his rapidly encroaching senility were true. How strange, then, that those advisers allowed him to debate when it was possible to see the man’s deficiencies within minutes of the opening salvo.

I find it difficult to understand propping up Biden during the almost four years of his service as the world’s most powerful human. But what is truly totally unfathomable is how these advisers proposed a run for another term for this greatly incapacitated man, and how his family encouraged the deceit. It’s totally impossible to believe that they didn’t see it for themselves. Jill Biden, who had always seemed like a nice, pareve woman, started to look Machiavellian in my eyes. Perhaps she liked the cushy job of First Lady too much. Why else encourage her husband’s campaign for a second term?

Hunter Biden, their errant son, also gave his support for a second term. Perhaps he thought it would personally relieve him of the criminal charges likely to come if Trump were to be elected. Hunter is clearly a troubled individual. Certainly his paintings are not worth the enormous prices for which they have been selling — but that’s not illegal. On another note, his work for Burisma is probably a different story. Is there anyone on Earth who thinks Burisma paid him enormous amounts of money because he brought it some previously unknown business savvy?

But when Joe promised America he would not pardon his son, we did believe him. Thus it came as a shock when Hunter was pardoned, sort of the ultimate blow in our loss of faith in the Biden presidency. As a human being and as a parent, it’s not hard to understand Biden’s action to protect his son. What is hard to relate to is the fact that he, no doubt with guidance from his guardians, lied to all of us, giving himself the patina of an honorable man, a man who subjected himself to ethical commitment, a man whose pledge even extended to his own child being at risk. But then he demurred and pardoned Hunter, despite his vow to America. Not nice, Joe!

Now, some good news; buried in the White House cabal, among the president’s advisers, were some of Israel’s most fervent supporters. Israel, no doubt, owes them forever gratitude. And so do we all! They were entirely steadfast and deserve recognition for seeing the light and defending Israel’s positions during the crisis, the morass, in which we continue to be flailing. Perhaps their ultimate actions were ultimately pure, to protect Israel, and I clearly hope that my cousin was a leader in that group. After all, with many of our extended family living in Israel today, and just about all of the rest of us committed Zionists, his loyalty to our Land would be a source of pride. That would be solace and redemption!

And now to the other side of the tarnished coin.

I have previously written much about Donald Trump. The level of deceit in our government is clearly not only from the Biden camp. Trump is a career criminal, with offenses both petty and otherwise. We, all of us, have personally been witness to some of his crimes. Surely not all! And a jury of his peers has similarly found him guilty as charged, although he managed to dodge many of the most heinous crimes.

Nonetheless, I was hoping to be able to support him as he embarked on another term as president. After all, who else is there? But sorry, Don, no can do! Observing him during this period prior to his taking office is dreadfully convincing to many of us that the leopard hasn’t changed his spots. From the very beginning, when he tried to appoint the woefully unqualified Matt Gaetz as attorney general, the writing was on the wall. And nearly all of his other would-be appointees are nothing short of shocking. They are consistently lacking in the character and experience for high office. Our nation is embarking on a terrifying path of lawlessness, led by a charlatan, a man with no personal values.

Whither America? Our beloved America is in trouble!

Rosanne Skopp of West Orange is a wife, mother of four, grandmother of 14, and great-grandmother of eight. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and a dual citizen of the United States and Israel. She is a lifelong blogger, writing blogs before anyone knew what a blog was! She welcomes email at rosanne.skopp@gmail.com

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