Asked to justify taking her granddaughter Naomi Biden on a taxpayer funded trip to Africa, First Lady Jill Biden thought the Golden Rationalization, “Everybody Does It,” #1 on the list, was justification enough.
“It’s so great for me to be able to bring a member of the family. I think it’s a tradition, or, actually that we’ve seen other families from first families, bring members of their family to just see the rest of the world and just experience the world,” Jill gushed during a stop in Namibia.
It’s so great for Naomi Biden, I guess, who is 29, an adult, and should be expected to pay her own way or stay home. There is no such “tradition.” Presidents have brought their wives and children along on such trips, and First Ladies have brought their kids; I suppose that is a reasonable perk of the job. But bringing along adult grandchildren and charging the government for the it is no “tradition.” This reminds me of Sir Joseph Porter, the “Ruler of the Queen’s Navee” in “H.M.S. Pinafore,” whose sisters, cousins and aunts follow him wherever he goes.
The reason there is no official edict prohibiting First Families from abusing the privilege of taking their children on an occasional diplomatic junket is that Presidents and First Ladies have had the sense, ethics and respect for taxpayers not to abuse it…until now. When ethics fail, the law takes over. There obviously needs to be official guidelines on this imaginary “tradition,” or President Harris will haul her family reunion guests along with her to New Zealand.
To be fair, it’s not as if Naomi isn’t doing important work. Below, for example, she helps out Jill as she distributes White House M&M’s to thrilled Namibians:
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Pointer: Other Bill
Ethics Alarms 
You know, I just finished a book on Chiang Kai-Shek (the Nationalist leader of China during WWII) and am finishing up a biography of Madame Chiang. Admittedly, despite being a WWII buff, I know little about the Pacific theater, especially the China-Burma-India part. I had known that Chiang was an ally of ours and that he lost to the Communists after the war in what some claimed was a betrayal by us.
But my reading as led me to realize that the truth of history is far more nuanced than Left or Right likes to have us believe and that is certainly true here. The facts are that Chiang and his family and his wife and her family were the major beneficiaries of U.S. largesse. As sympathetic as U.S. citizens are to any underdog, they don’t like seeing money intended to relieve suffering wasted. That is what happened in China. In general, I’d had a favorable impression of him…and her. I don’t anymore.
Chiang refused to believe the extent of Chinese suffering under his government until actually shown photos of it by U.S. representatives. He mismanaged his army. He rejected needed reforms. He refused to compromise. His family and in-laws lived large and ostentatiously while people everywhere starved and resorted to cannibalism. Madame Chiang was feted everywhere she went in the U.S. but she was not particularly popular with the White House. Both biographies quoted someone in the know as saying that FDR was “crazy to get her out of the country”.
Eventually, a sympathetic American public found it hard to reconcile Madame’s stylish clothes and extensive fur coat collection with her constant pleas for American taxpayer support.
After the war, it didn’t get much better. Truman was far less diplomatic than FDR, especially once WWII was over. “They wanted me to send in about five million Americans to rescue him but I wouldn’t do it…he was as corrupt as they come. I wasn’t going to waste one single American life to save him…They hooted and hollered and carried on and said I was soft on Communism…But…I never changed my mind about Chiang and his gang. Every damn one of them ought to be in jail, and I’d like to live to see the day they are.”
Apparently, the Nationalists offered an American military advisor $5 million to come over as a consultant. Besides telling them he had sufficient money, he suggested that, if they had that much available, they would best use it to help the Chinese people so that Communism would be less attractive to them.
My point here, and I apologize for this lengthy digression, is that, when people are suffering (as citizens of the U.S. are with high inflation and shortages), they don’t like to see people in charge – or their family members – living it large at taxpayer expense. I’m sure Chiang and Madame had plenty of excuses, too. Those excuses left them exiled from their country and their people suffering under the boot of the CCP for 80 years.
If we have no bread, we can always eat cake.
I am not sure this started with Biden. The Obamas (more precisely, Michelle) took many, many trips all over the place, with her mother in tow to care for their two daughters. They had fact-finding missions to Barcelona and China and South Africa and India and Senegal and . . . well, you get the picture. I am sure other presidents and their families did the same.
jvb
Oh, no, it didn’t start with Biden and even EA covered the Obamas’ trip to Spain during the recession back during that administration. But their defenders always come up with the Everybody Does It rationalization and the Whataboutism rationalization and the ridiculous Presidents Aren’t Allowed to Take Vacations? argument (no, not luxury trips while Americans are suffering economically, you fools!).
Meanwhile, they kept tabs on how many days Donald Trump golfed…at his own resort…in the United States.
Yeah, well, Karine Jean Pierre referred to Biden as “President Obama”:
jvb
If wishes were horses, they’d all have stallions.
“or President Harris will haul her family reunion guests along with her to New Zealand.”
No! If Harris does come here to New Zealand on some sort of diplomatic mission she can keep her family at home.
I had no idea her grandchild was twenty-nine years old. Breathtaking.
I always thought Hillary providing What’s Her Name all sorts of foreign travel as the daughter of the Secretary of State was the most shameless example of this sort of behavior. Bidens and Clintons: grifters one and all.
Chelsea!
How quickly we forget. I once met Chelsea at Reagan National Airport. She had been to see one of my theater’s shows. I was stunned at how tiny she was.
A lot of the performers I followed before COVID were also very small. Celtic Woman fiddler Mairead Nesbitt, who stands only 5’1″ once made the usual comment about good things coming in small packages. I guess small packages don’t always contain good things, though. I’m surprised we haven’t heard much from Chelsea, though, I thought the Democratic Party was going to put her up for a seat in the House once one opened up.
I also thought Chelsea was being groomed to carry on the Clinton grift.
She flunked her test flights, just like Caroline Kennedy.
Hillary is only 5’3″ as near as they let us know. Too short to be the leader of whatever world it is the U.S. is the leader of these days.
There are a lot of known facts surrounding these issues. Still, until there is a law prohibiting it, it will continue, and the Congress and Senators on both sides of the aisle know there is nothing the people can do about it, so allow the people; to keep on complaining and ignore the people. All we are doing is going around and around in circles with no final resolution. No wonder we get nowhere except for the further decline of society.