The Wall Street Journal Goes There

On Saturday, I posted on the expanding Overton window that's beginning to encompass the question of what President Biden might have done in his role as "point person" for Ukraine during the Obama administration to put us where we are in the stalled Russo-Ukraine War. The key question that's been raised by Seymour Hersh is what President Zelensky may know about Biden's involvement in Ukraine's politics while Biden was vice president that could give Zelensky leverage over current US policy.

On Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran a column by Holman W Jenkins Jr, Hunter Biden Is a Geopolitical Disaster, that indirectly raises the same question, but it tries to make Hunter the culprit, not Joe. The column itself is behind a paywall, but a good part of it is excerpted at Instapundit. Joe Biden while vice president

allowed a family environment in which milking connection to Joe was de rigueur. Paralysis seizes our elite over what has ensued.

. . . At some point, questions should also be asked of Barack Obama. Why allow Mr. Biden to control the Ukraine portfolio when he wouldn’t restrain his son? Was Biden family corruption the reason you skipped over your veep and endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016?

The story here is all the more remarkable for being untold. In short order, the Hunter mess has managed to taint our intelligence community, the FBI, IRS and now the Justice Department. If news sense is not completely dulled by neurotic compliance, some editors must also be starting to see the outlines of another approaching debacle, in which skeletons from the Biden closet elect Mr. Trump.

In other words, Mr Jenkins goes the long way around to ask what Seymour Hersh also asks, what does Zelensky have on Biden? In Mr Jenkins's view, this could become a big enough story to tip the 2024 election.

This brought me to look at how the "Hunter mess" got started, at least as it relates to Ukraine, and there's actually very little available about this. A 2019 op-ed by John Solomon at The Hill says,

The timing of Hunter Biden’s and [Devon] Archer’s appointment to Burisma’s board has been highlighted in the past, by The New York Times in December 2015 and in a 2016 book by conservative author Peter Schweizer.

. . . President Obama named Biden the administration’s point man on Ukraine in February 2014, after a popular revolution ousted Russia-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych and as Moscow sent military forces into Ukraine’s Crimea territory.

According to Schweizer’s book, Vice President Biden met with Archer in April 2014 right as Archer was named to the board at Burisma. A month later, Hunter Biden was named to the board, to oversee Burisma’s legal team.

Solomon then rehearses what was already known of Hunter's and Archer's positions on the Burisma board, their generous directors' fees, and millions of dollars otherwise paid to Biden entities, evidence that was available as of 2019 even before the discovery of Hunter's laptop in 2020. Solomon concludes,

Nonetheless, some hard questions should be answered by Biden as he prepares, potentially, to run for president in 2020: Was it appropriate for your son and his firm to cash in on Ukraine while you served as point man for Ukraine policy? What work was performed for the money Hunter Biden’s firm received? Did you know about the Burisma probe? And when it was publicly announced that your son worked for Burisma, should you have recused yourself from leveraging a U.S. policy to pressure the prosecutor who very publicly pursued Burisma?

As far as we're beginning to learn as of 2023, there were more payments to the Bidens for more millions from other Ukrainians over matters beyond Burisma, but the question of whether, and how, just the Burisma investigation was thwarted hasn't been sufficiently investigated. Testimony from Devon Archer to the Comer committee that's expected today is likely to expand our understanding of these transactions:

Archer visited Biden's vice presidential residence for a holiday reception in December 2009, and he met with Biden in the West Wing of the White House on April 16, 2014, just days before Archer and Hunter joined the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in Ukraine.

Archer also played golf with Joe and Hunter Biden in the Hamptons at least once during the Obama administration in August 2014, four months after he and Hunter joined Burisma.

I don't think Holman Jenkins at the Wall Street Journal is out of line to see "the outlines of another approaching debacle".

Yup, Hunter's Left The White House

In a story that I think confirms my speculation in Friday's post, the New York Post reported on Friday:

The first son cut a dejected figure as he arrived at Los Angeles’ Van Nuys Airport in a private plane early Friday — as a documentary filmmaker captured his every move.

Hunter, 53, touched down just before 1 a.m. SoCal time, more than 36 hours after Delaware US District Judge Maryellen Noreika blew the whistle on a wrist-slap plea agreement cooked up by Hunter’s attorneys and father Joe’s Department of Justice.

As an airport worker retrieved Hunter’s bags, the first son was consoled on the tarmac by an unidentified friend sporting a Yankees cap and a mustard-colored sweater. A camera operator observed the scene a few feet away.

The Post had nothing to say about whose jet this was, but I think we can assume it was the same one that he flew in with Kevin Morris to Philadelphia Tuesday night to attend his Delaware court session, Kevin Morris's plane.

I think this helps firm up a timeline. It seems to be generally understood, although there are no public White House logs to confirm or disprove it, that Hunter had been in residence there since sometime last year. In the weekends prior to this past July 4, including the holiday weekend itself, Hunter had accompanied Joe to Camp David. In the inquiries after the discovery of the baggie outside the Situation Room, it was acknowledged that Hunter had been in the White House just before the family departed for Camp David.

A uniformed Secret Service officer discovered the baggie during the evening of July 2 while the family was still away. By the afternoon of July 4, Hunter, Joe, Dr Jill, and little Beau were filmed on the White House balcony during a vignette in which Hunter stepped away briefly to do something with his nose, to the evident discomfort of Joe and Dr Jill. (Mrs Hunter, Melissa Cohen, wasn't in the scene.)

Over the following week, gosh darn, the Secret Service announced the baggie could have belonged to any of 500 people and dropped further investigation.

The next we heard of Hunter's whereabouts, according to the UK Daily Mail, Hunter was in LA on July 21 paying Kevin Morris a visit, during which Mr Morris stepped out onto his balcony to take a hit from a bong. Then, on July 25, Morris flew Hunter from LA to Philadelphia to attend the court hearing the following day.

The last time Kevin Morris made the news in his private jet was this past April 30, when he flew from Los Angeles to Dulles Airport, where he picked up Hunter and flew him back to

Newport Municipal Airport in Jackson County, [AR,] 34 miles from the Independence County Courthouse in Batesville, where Biden attended [a court] hearing the next morning.

When the hearing concluded, Morris flew Hunter back to Dulles. This is further suggestion that as of April, Hunter was operating out of the White House. But it's worth pointing out another data point farther down in the story at that link:

Flight records show the aircraft landing in or taking off from Fayetteville, Ark. at least nine times between February 2022 and April 2023.

Fayetteville is the home of Edward Prewitt, Hunter Biden’s financial advisor.

Laptop emails show Prewitt had access to several business accounts linked to Hunter Biden.

Morris — reached by phone in Hawaii — declined to comment.

So we have some level of suggestion that up to the time of the Secret Service investigation into the baggie, Hunter had been living at the White House, certainly since last spring. Then, following the July 2 discovery of the baggie and the apparent public bump on the balcony, Hunter is no longer at the White House, and the Secret Service is driving him around LA instead.

My hypothesis continues to be that some combination of remonstrances from Joe's staff and the Secret Service led to a decision to put more distance between Hunter and Joe, sending him back to LA and relying on some combination of Kevin Morris amd an LA Secret Service detail to babysit the First Cokehead, at least for the time being.

But in light of the new conditions for Hunter's pretrial release, which include not to use alcohol at all, not to use or unlawfully possess a narcotic drug, and not to break any federal, state, or local law, this would seem to be a high-risk strategy.

But let's leave aside the cost to the taxpayer of using the Secret Service as Hunter's minders and limo service. It looks like Kevin Morris is flying Hunter around the country whenever he needs it, and he's paying, apparently, for Hunter's legal bills in the multimillions, plus pocket money for Hunter, who is otherwise unemployed, traveling around money for Melissa, plus whatever the current costs are for separate living arrangements for Hunter, Melissa, and little Beau, plus Beau's nannies and daycare.

This is a lot for Mr Morris to be picking up, even if there's a quid pro quo. But what on earth could Mr Morris want to buy for that much money? What's behind all this? Is it even coming out of Mr Morris's resources, or is someone paying him back?

Just Because You're Paranoid Doesn't MeanThey Aren't Out To Get You

One factor in the current environment that hasn't had much notice is the expansion of the Overton window, the range of ideas politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time. These include notions that only a short time ago would have been considered "paranoid" or "conspiracy theories".

The most prominent example is how the presidential campaign of Robert Kennedy Jr has advanced interpretations of events that only a year or two ago would have been deemed dangerously heterodox, and he's gaining an audience. For instance, Bill Ackman, "one of the most influential investors on Wall Street", has begun to endorse Kennedy's views on COVID vaccines:

Bill Ackman said in 2021 that delaying Covid vaccinations for older Americans “seems like genocide.”

Today, the influential hedge fund chief and investor is amplifying the debunked anti-vaccine views of Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Ackman is not denying his change. In fact, he said Kennedy is asking “important questions” about vaccines, raising issues he is interested in learning more about.

Or take Seymour Hersh, whose reporting since the My Lai massacre has always pushed the envelope, but his more recent stories, especially his allegation that

US Navy divers, acting under the direct orders of US President Joe Biden, planted C4 explosives on the [Nordstream] pipelines during routine NATO exercises in June last year, before remotely activating the bombs three months later

have been met with intense skepticism. More recently, he's said this about dissent within the US intelligence community over the Ukraine war:

Let’s take a look at recent events in the Ukraine war from the point of view of those in the American intelligence community who don’t feel they have the ear of President Joe Biden but should.

. . . The Biden administration’s role in both [of the Ukrainian] attacks [on the Kerch bridge] was vital. “Of course it was our technology,” one American official told me. “The drone was remotely guided and half submerged—like a torpedo.” I asked if there was any thought before the bridge attack about the possibility of retaliation. “What will Putin do? We don’t think that far,” the official said. “Our national strategy is that Zelensky can do whatever he wants to do. There’s no adult supervision.”

. . . At this point, with the Ukraine counteroffensive against Russia thwarted, the official said, “Zelensky has no plan, except to hang on. It’s as if he’s an orphan—a poor waif in his underwear—and we have no real idea of what Zelensky and his crowd are thinking. Ukraine is the most corrupt and dumbest government in the world, outside of Nigeria, and Biden’s support of Zelensky can only come from Zelensky’s knowledge of Biden, and not just because he was taking care of Biden’s son.”

In other words, what does Zelensky have on Biden? Even a couple of months ago, this would have been well outside the range of acceptable questions, but with the steady stream of revelations from Sen Grassley and the Comer committee involving millions in under-the-table payments from Ukrainians and others, it isn't that far off base. As Mr Ackman said about Kennedy Jr, we're interested in learning more.

Or take Oliver Stone, not long ago denounced for "loony JFK conspiracies", who more recently has expanded on his views about US involvement in Ukraine:

Stone spoke on a recent episode of commentator Russell Brand’s talk show "Stay Free" on Rumble. Stone won international fame for his documentaries, one of which was "Ukraine on Fire." This documentary is described on IMDb as one that details the ousting of Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych in a "coup d'état" aided by the United States government in 2014.

. . . He then slammed the "Neoconservative movement who started the war in Iraq" who yet remain "deep inside our government," citing prominent figures like Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He went on to add that "Biden is an old Cold Warrior, and he really hates the old Soviet Union which he confounds again with the Russian Federation, which is not communist."

. . . "If we don’t stop this, what Biden is doing, this guy is – I voted for him – I made a mistake, I was thinking he was an old man now that he would calm down, that he would be more mellow and so-forth, I didn’t see that at all," he said. "I see a man who maybe is not in charge of his own administration. Who knows?"

The problem we're looking at in all these cases is that there are new data points that we've begun to recognize can't be explained within our existing cognitive models, so we're forced to go outside them. What happened in the 1960s was that we had not a single, isolated political assassination out of the blue -- like, say, President McKinley's in 1901 or James Garfield's in 1881 -- but a sequence of three over five years, accompanied by an increasingly problematic war.

Thus we saw the rise, and in fact the persistence, of conspiracy theories. I don't think it's coincidental thar Robert Kennedy Jr has endorsed at least one of them:

Robert Kennedy Jr., the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate, has backed a conspiracy theory that the CIA was involved in the killing of his uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, arguing the evidence is “overwhelming.”

“There is overwhelming evidence that the CIA was involved in his murder,” Kennedy said in a Sunday interview with John Catsimatidis on New York City radio station WABC 770. “I think it’s beyond a reasonable doubt at this point.”

Well, when it looks like the Democrats may have rigged the 2020 election, in part by alleging that the loser was a Russian agent and using the organs of state security to discredit damning evidence on Hunter's laptop, and then engineered political prosecutions of the loser, what are we supposed to think? This is what happens when the consensus narrative becomes unsustainable.

Has Hunter Moved Out Of The White House?

Exactly where Hunter has been living for the past year or more hasn't been clear in any case, but common speculation had been that he'd moved into the White House sometime in 2022, at least in part to avoid legal service in his child support case with Lunden Roberts. This was settled last month, which would take away one possible reason for his extended White House stay.

On the other hand, Hunter and Joe have a strange relationship that at least outwardly looks like codependency. It appears that Hunter continues to be a key adviser to Joe, and in addition, it seems likely that he enables Joe's inflence-peddling side gig at the same time that Joe enables Hunter's drug and alcohol abuse. All things being equal, it looks like Joe would prefer to keep Hunter close at hand in the White House, while the unexplained baggie near the Situation Room (if that's where it was) suggests Hunter had worked out a modus vivendi with White House security that would accommodate his habits.

I think, though, that after the baggie episode, it was made known to Joe that there was only so much the Secret Service could do to maintain appearances. I posted here on the best explanation I've heard for the baggie: in the view of former cocaine addict and Wolf of Wall Street Jordan Belfort, someone like Hunter will leave small stashes all over the place in order to have a constant supply close at hand. I strongly suspect the Secret Service had already been finding these as a matter of routine, and it was only a uniformed officer who was out of the loop on the holiday weekend who called it in as a hazmat incident.

Thus it must have been transmitted to Joe that it was only a matter of time before something like this happened again, and while the Secret Service could claim ignorance this time, all future bets would be off. So at this point, Joe had two options: let Hunter stay on at the White House and risk more baggie discoveries that link Joe with enabling Hunter's drug use, or send Hunter back to LA again under Kevin Morris's aegis, where he seems to have been between 2019 and 2022.

I suspect this had already proven unsatisfactory by last year. Hunter had a team of Secret Service minders in the rental adjoining his own in the Malibu compound that was apparently paid for by Kevin Morris, but what we're beginning to see from last week's vignette on the balcony with the bong is that Kevin is anything but a stabilizing influence, and I've got to think that by the middle of last year, the Secret Service had made it known to Joe that Hunter was getting out of hand.

So Joe had two bad options: keep Hunter close by in the White House and risk more baggies being found, or send Hunter back to California with Kevin and risk even bigger scandals with wrecked cars and Russian hookers. I suspect the fallback plan with Kevin involves an even bigger Secret Service detail and closer escort with multiple black SUVs, but a tacit agreement to look the other way over drug deals -- in fact, I'll bet Kevin even handles those. Hookers? I imagine those can be factored in as well. Just don't let him drive, that's the big thing.

(As I've noted here frequently, Hunter's wife Melissa seems mostly out of the picture these days.)

Wednesday's court hearing in Delaware does add complications. Following Hunter's not guilty plea, the conditions of his realease require him not to use any alcohol or drugs, including marijuana, which although legal in California, is still prohibited under his conditions. In addition, he has to submit to drug tests. We don't know how strictly these will be enforced, but all of this is a risk. Even a repeat of last week's situation with Hunter visiting Kevin while Kevin went onto the balcony with a bong could now have repercussions that could put Hunter in jail.

It's hard to imagine someone like Hunter resisting the temptation to take a hit if Kevin lights up a bong while he's visiting, but even if he refrains, there's some possibility he could fail a drug test just by being in the room. But why would a "friend" like Kevin expose him to even that temptation?

It's slowly being acknowledged that the judge placing Hunter's plea deal on hold in the Delaware hearing is a major blow to Biden's reelection strategy. The whole intent was to resolve Hunter's legal issues once and for all and get them out of the way before the 2024 campaign. Now it's less likely that this will happen, while the likelihood that Hunter will do something new to get back in the news is increasing -- and the Secret Service will be right there enabling it with black SUVs.

The paparazzi have those black SUVs dialed in -- we learned that last week.

Who Blew It?

Legal commentators on the disastrous courtroom events for Hunter Biden in Delaware yesterday have avoided asking this question, but they've unavoidably skirted it by noting that plea deals aren't usually handled this way.

Normally there's just a pro forma exchange in which the judge makes sure the defendant understands the terms of the plea, and it's 15 minutes in and out. Commentators like Jonathan Turley have noted that it's basic lawyering to have the terms of the plea fully negotiated and agreed to before it reaches the court, yet somehoe this didn't take place. So who blew it? According to Politico, Hunter

was accompanied by a group of lawyers, including prominent white collar defender Abbe Lowell. Kevin Morris, a Hollywood lawyer who has reportedly given Hunter significant financial help, sat in the audience with members of his legal team.

Morris has repeatedly identified himself as Hunter's "lead attorney", and according to the UK Daily Mail,

Hunter Biden flew to his criminal court hearing in a private jet belonging to his ‘sugar brother’, according to a source and flight records.

A Dassault Falcon 50 belonging to Kevin Morris, Hunter’s lawyer and financial benefactor, flew from a Los Angeles airport to Philadelphia today, landing around 7.15pm local time, flight data shows.

A source told DailyMail.com that Morris and the First Son were on the plane.

As I noted here, Hunter was spotted visiting Morris at one of his LA area homes last Friday, when Morris was spotted huffing from a bong on the home's balcony. One can only infer that they were having a premature celebration.

On the other hand, Chris Clark was the attorney who spoke for Hunter in front of the judge. He's the gent with graying hair and a bald spot walking into the courthouse behind Hunter in the photo above. The peculiar thing about Clark is that he left the white-shoe Latham & Watkins firm only this past April in order to take on Hunter as the major client in a new firm:

Last week, leading litigator Christopher Clark left Latham & Watkins, one of Biglaw’s biggest and best names, to launch his own boutique. Together with Patrick Smith, a former colleague of his from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and Rodney Villazor, another former federal prosecutor, Clark is a founding partner of Clark Smith Villazor.

For this new podcast episode, Clark and I discussed his time at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which he joined right after clerking; his time in Biglaw, including Dewey & LeBoeuf during its downfall; why he admires his most controversial client, Hunter Biden; helpful advice for representing billionaires; and, finally, a key skill for success as a lawyer—which, sadly, many lawyers overlook.

One would assume a key skill for success as a lawyer would be to be sure you have your client's plea deal nailed down in detail before you go before the judge. But beyond that, it sounds as though he and two former federal prosecutor colleagues formed a new firm primarily to defend Hunter, which maybe they thought would establish their reputation in the white collar defense world. So far, that isn't working out the way they expected. According to Yahoo,

Criminal prosection experts say that the younger Biden went from "a sweetheart deal" to a "real poison pill" that could "expose him across the board."

"The judge had an obligation to make sure that the defendant and the government have a very clear idea of what is implicated guaranteed," Jonathan Turley, criminal law professor at George Washington University, told Fox News, adding that "they didn't have that."

Turley said the plea deal dissolving in such a manor [sic] is "extremely rare" akin to "a wedding where both the groom and bride object."

Along with Bud Light and the Titan sub, this is starting to look like another episode in the crisis of competence among our Ivy-educated elites. Chris Clark has a BA from Berkeley Phi Beta Kappa and a JD from Coiumbia cum laude. Kevin Morris has a BA from Cornell and a JD from NYU. Abbe Lowell has both a BA and a JD from Columbia. Hunter Biden has a BA from Georgetown and a JD from Yale Law.

These legal minds together managed to concoct an epic debacle. My theory, though, is that Kevin Morris, who appears to have been paying all the legal bills, worked out the overall strategy, quite possibly with the help of Hunter, between hits on a bong. That's the only explanation I can think of that fits.

I'm Still Wondering About Kevin Morris's Angle

One takeaway I had from last week's case of the balcony bong was that Kevin Morris seems to own yet another house, this one a pied-a-terre on a swanky street that might be in Pacific Palisades. This is apparently in addition to his sprawling loft in Tribeca, as well as the $11 million Malibu compound that he bought from Olivia Newton-John.

Hunter Biden's Secret Service detail drives him over for casual afternoons on weed, but it pretty clearly wouldn't matter what they smoke together, because the men in the black SUV waiting outside will keep things quiet no matter what. And that's the main puzzle I have: Morris is supposed to be a rich lawyer, but it's hard to avoid thinking he's hanging with Hunter because he needs something, not least protection. Protection from what?

It has to be something important. Just yesterday, we learned that in addition to setting up the whole deal whereby Hunter would sell his paintings to unknown buyers, Morris himself bought unspecified paintings for unspecified amounts:

Hunter Biden also reportedly sold art to his top lawyer, Kevin Morris, who also paid Hunter Biden’s unpaid IRS bill of about $2 million. The entertainment lawyer is at the center of Hunter Biden’s new-found career of painting modern art, an occupation connected to the art market known for corruption.

Morris helped Hunter forge a framework to sell art to anonymous buyers through a dealer with ties to the Chinese art market. Morris was also involved in Hunter’s 2021 controversial memoir.

Nevertheless,

During a July 9, 2021, press briefing, then-White House press secretary Jen Psaki addressed Hunter Biden's sale of artwork and concerns that his works may present conflicts of interest with the administration.

"After careful consideration, a system has been established that allows for Hunter Biden to work in his profession within reasonable safeguards. . . . all interactions regarding the selling of art and the setting of prices will be handled by a professional gallerist adhering to the highest industry standards, and any offer out of the normal, of course, would be rejected out of hand."

"And the gallerist will not share information about buyers or prospective buyers, including their identities, with Hunter Biden or the administration, which provides quite a level of protection and transparency," she continued.

. . . Despite the alleged safeguards, the younger Biden did ultimately learn the identity of at least two buyers, including one who donated to his father's campaign.

Further,

Elizabeth Hirsh Naftali, a Los Angeles real estate investor and Democratic donor named to a U.S. commission, is among the buyers of novice paintings by Hunter Biden. The price: $1.3 million.

Naftali, picked by President Joe Biden to serve on a prestigious preservation commission, bought an artwork from the son of the nation’s commander in chief, the New York Post reported, citing Business Insider.

The Hunter Biden sale to a standing U.S. commissioner may have broken an “absolute wall” between President Biden’s official duties and his family’s business interests. It came to light in sales records from Hunter Biden’s art dealer, the Georges Bergès Gallery of Manhattan.

But the problem I see is that Ms Hirsh Naftali engaged in a single quid-pro-quo transaction with the Bidens, but Kevin Morris seems to have been running a good part of the whole family boodle -- he lent Hunter the money to pay his tax bill, he brokered his memoir, he set up the art sale scam, and oh by the way, he's Hunter's lead attorney in his federal tax and firearm case. So what else is there?

I'll bet there's a lot more to learn. Morris has got to want something important.

The History Channel's The FoodThat Built America Glorifies Bud Light!

The History Channel's The Food That Built America is a slick and glitzy business-school style "whig history" that covers why we have the wonderful frozen waffles, fried chicken, fast-food burgers, or packaged luncheon meats we have in this best of all possible consumer worlds. It can sometimes be vaguely informative, and even when it isn't, it gives some insight into the thought processes of the people who fancy they control the planet.

This past Sunday's episode is important for what it leaves out, since it chronicles how that wonderful product Bud Light became the top US beer, which is perfect anyhow. I'll grant that the episode must have been produced and in the can before last March, when a trans influencer singlehandedly destroyed the brand in a matter of weeks, but even if it hadn't been finished by then, that part of the story would have been so alien to the show's mission that they'd probably have had to scrap the whole episode rather than add an update.

The first part of the show covers the rise of yet another perfect, wonderful product, light beer. Philip Morris, a tobacco company, was faced with increasing regulatory limits on cigarette sales in the 1960s and decided to expand its business by buying Miller, an also-ran brewer. Philip Morris had already pioneered "light" cigarettes and was able to sell them successfully by identifying them with the macho Marlboro man, rather than trying to market any health benefits they might have.

In the process of branching into beer, they acquired another brewery that in fact produced a low-calorie beer marketed mostly toward women. That was a niche market that was going nowhere, but it also didn't taste good. Still, the Philip Morris wheels began to turn, and they decided the way to sell low-calorie beer was to call it "light", not low calorie, and imply that its main benefit was you could get more buzzed on more beer with the same amount of calories. Health had little to do with it.

Thus they made commercials with sports figures and other macho guys roaring "Tastes Great!" and "Less Filling!" According to Wikipedia,

Miller Lite was introduced nationally in 1975 and became the first successful mainstream light beer in the United States.

Miller's youth-oriented, heavy-advertising approach worked where the two previous light beers had failed, and Miller's early production totals of 12.8 million barrels quickly increased to 24.2 million barrels by 1977 as Miller rose to 2nd place in the American brewing marketplace,

Wikipedia continues,

Other brewers responded, in particular Anheuser-Busch with its heavily advertised Bud Light in 1982, which eventually overtook Lite in sales by 1994. Anheuser-Busch played on the branding style of "Lite", boasting that next to Bud Light "everything else is just a light". In 1992, light beers became the biggest domestic beer in America[.]

However, Bud Light didn't overtake Miller Lite until it decided to market to males as welL, According to The Atlantic,

A Super Bowl ad changed everything. In 1987, Anheuser-Busch made a play for younger male drinkers with a 30-second spot during the big game featuring a bull terrier named Spuds MacKenzie—“Bud Light’s original party animal!” Spuds became a pop-culture sensation, skateboarding in sunglasses and drawing the thirsty gaze of scantily clad women. “He’s Spuds MacKenzie,” the narrator of a later ad exclaimed: “One party-loving, happening dude!” . . . Spuds came to embody the fun-loving-frat-boy image that set Bud Light apart from the more staid Budweiser brand.

. . . Seven years later, in 2001, Bud Light passed Budweiser to become America’s best-selling beer, period: a staple at grocery stores and bars, a ubiquitous option at the ballpark, an entry-level lager to crush at college parties and tailgates.

This is the place where The Food That Built America ends its story. What a country! The Atlantic takes it farther:

“I had a really clear job to do when I took over Bud Light, and it was, ‘This brand is in decline, it’s been in a decline for a really long time, and if we do not attract young drinkers to come and drink this brand, there will be no future for Bud Light,’” Alissa Heinerscheid, vice president of marketing for Bud Light, told the Make Yourself at Home podcast in March. A month later, Heinerscheid was placed on leave as the company tried to control the fallout of the anti-Mulvaney boycott. Her effort to shed the company’s frat-boy image may have been too tall an order for a brand that built its empire by encouraging young men to imagine themselves as a literal horndog.

But this raises a key question. A declining top brand is still a top brand. What if Anheuser had just left Ms Heinerscheid's position vacant and decided Bud Light wasn't broken enough to try to fix? Wouldn't they have had decades of continuing profit? At this point, they'd be happy just to coast down to number two after x years without the black eye they've had from the Mulvaney fiasco. The Atlantic concludes with a shrug:

But tastes change. Schlitz was once America’s best-selling beer, and the original Budweiser’s run ended in 2001. Bud Light rose to prominence as a good-time brand that brings the party: Our beer is fun! Drink a lot of it! Today’s drinkers tend to have a more sophisticated self-conception. They also have far more options—and opinions. Beer exists in a fractious world in which anything can become ammo in the culture war, be it Disney movies or clothing at Target. No beer brand will ever be so dominant again. It’s difficult to know quite how to feel.

I'm not sure if it's that easy. By the 1960s, brewers knew you don't sell beer by marketing to women. Light beer rose to prominence by claiming to be a macho product. Suddenly a woman Harvard graduate whose appearence is calorie-conscious verging on anorexia decides the way to go is to market to guys who pretend to be skinny women. Even The Atlantic tacitly acknowledges this decision became ammo in a culture war, and that war has been a debacle.

It's probably best the History Channel could pretend it hadn't heard anything about Dylan Mulvaney. But the real history here is yet to be written.