How Did Hunter Get That Way?

When the story about Ashley Biden's diary broke last weekend, I had a feeling it wasn't going away, notwithstanding its contents, the incoherent, vaguely allusive jottings of a deeply troubled drug addict, are of no probative value for much of anything. But that the FBI would be involved in harassing Project Veritas over something or other in connection with it is effective acknowledgement of its authenticity.

In fact, I think if nothing else, it's also confirmation that the big guy is dumb as a rock -- nobody would touch the story during last fall's campaign, and if the FBI hadn't been sicced on James O'Keefe last week, the whole thing would have stayed forgotten. Now, with the matter in court, it's an ongoing narrative. Dumb as a rock.

The most-referenced passages have the author ruminating over being sexually active and hypersexualized at an early age, with one clear factor being "possibly inappropriate" showers with her father. This suggests to me that the Biden family environment was just an everyday extension of the vignettes we've seen in the news from time to time. For instance, there's the skinny-dipping:

It's the Joe Biden you didn't know — and might not want to see.

Secret Service agents dread being assigned to protect the vice president, in part because Biden's a big fan of skinny dipping, according to a new tell-all book.

. . . "Agents say that, whether at the vice president's residence or at his home in Delaware, Biden has a habit of swimming in his pool nude," Kessler writes.

"Female Secret Service agents find that offensive."

This in turn echoes reports of Hunter's behavior. This story cites a lengthy e-mail found on Hunter's famous laptop where he claims a woman, apparently his ex-wife,

has told them others [sic] I am a bad influence that I endanger their health that I've been sexually inapopropriate with [redacted] . . . and that she knows that if [redacted] were allowed to come visit me I would be "walking around naked watching porn masturbating and doing drugs in front of her." [redacted] IS NOT EVEN ALLOWED TO VISIT me if [redacted] my 25 yer [sic] old brings her she is only allowed alone with me if my father is there.

From the added perspective of Ashley's diary, it sounds as though the Biden family environment was something from which both Ashley and Hunter were exposed to and learned highly dysfunctional behavior from an early age. The report of skinny dipping both in Delaware and then in the vice president's residence suggests this was a habit of long standing in the Biden home. Indeed, it makes me wonder if the Bidens' regular weekends in Delaware now reflect a potential discomfort with having White House domestic staff and secret service observe other facets of family life.

One could speculate the apples didn't fall too far from the tree. Nor is it surprising that someone in a position to do so would order the FBI to suppress this information, however counterproductive the effort would be. As Aquinas says, sin dulls the intellect, and Biden is dumb as a rock.