Public figures must learn how to be right

Hunter Biden needs to learn how to be right. You can be noble-right or bitter-right. In his recent YouTube series Channel 5 interview, he seemed to embrace the latter. The younger Biden dropped so many F-bombs that I wondered if he taught his dad to cuss instead of the other way around.

Remember, he was defending his father, former President Joe Biden, against critics, some of whom Hunter considers traitors. In fairness, Hunter was correct about Joe Biden’s legislative successes during his White House stay, helping the Democrats overachieve in the 2022 midterms, and legitimately defeating Donald Trump in 2020. Being grumpy doesn’t automatically make him wrong about everything.

In 1992, the popular TV series Murphy Brown aired an episode where the female lead, a newscaster, has a baby out of wedlock. Then-Vice President Dan Quayle gave a speech that mentioned the episode saying that the Murphy Brown character was “mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone and calling it just another lifestyle choice.” Quayle’s broader point was that the 1992 Los Angeles riots were due to disintegrating family values. Quayle wasn’t necessarily wrong; he was just bad at being right. All anyone remembered was the Murphy Brown reference.

Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan once said. “it would be easier to assimilate 1 million Englishmen into Virginia than 1 million Zulus.” That may be true, but the wording puzzled some listeners.

There’s an apt description for people like Hunter Biden: “right message, wrong messenger.” But that designation applies to officeholders too.

Voters yearn for leaders of both parties who know how to be right, and dutifully course correct when they’re wrong. America needs a Commander-in-chief who can do both with transparency and honor — not a national scold.

Jim Newton

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