Kash and Carry (him out)

One Donald Trump nominee is so devoted to his once and future boss he wrote a series of children’s books with a villain named Hillary Queenton. Another had to be carried out drunk from after-work “parties” and was denounced in writing by his own mother.

But hey, Joe Biden pardoned his son.

As already noted, Biden lied when he said he would not intervene in the criminal convictions of his son Hunter.

But in its relentless pursuit of bright shiny objects the Washington press corps is in high dudgeon over this lapse in purity by someone they have cast as a doddering old man now responsible for any future lapse in ethics in the nation’s capital.

Let’s be clear: in accepting a pardon Hunter Biden’s convictions on gun law and tax charges stand. He did the crime. And he has already done time in the harsh national spotlight where Republicans displayed his private parts across the internet. In some ways prison would have offered less humiliation and more privacy.

But because his father put his son’s welfare first, the press corps feels compelled to focus on this diversion from the norm.

On the other hand, Trump’s nomination of Kash Patel as FBI Director and Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary is simply business as usual for the man who named Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, ambassador to France.

After granting him a pardon for crimes that also included tax charges — and setting up his own brother-in-law with a prostitute, filming the encounter and sending it to his sister in an attempt to intimidate cooperation with investigators.

But back to Hegseth and Patel, two of the parade of horribles Trump has put forward to “lead” our nation that also include Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.

The Fox News host’s mother had some harsh words for her wayward son, who has been dogged by allegations of sexual misconduct and alcohol abuse:

“On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth wrote, stating that she still loved him.

She also wrote: “I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth.”

While she told the New York Times she immediately followed that up with an apology, it recalls a long-standing journalism motto:

“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, a top-notch investigative reporter, did just that. And what she found tended to back up Mother Hegseth’s original note. And raise serious doubts about his ability to led a sprawling agency with an $850 billion budget and 2.8 million civilian and military employees:

“It was a picture of a leader who was pushed out of his leadership positions in two groups that were for veterans because there were so many concerns about his financial mismanagement and his personal conduct. So — and these were relatively small groups with relatively small budgets. And the first group had only 10 people working at it, Veterans for Freedom.”

In large part because his reputation for partying that included having people stop him from getting on stage with strippers; chanting “Kill all Muslims”; and having to be carried out of bars blind drunk.

But his experiences may have had a more real world flavor than Patel’s — who promoted pills he claimed could reverse the effects of the COVID-19 vaccine.

And who found the time to author a series of children’s books featuring himself as a wizard named the “Distinguished Discoverer” defending “King Donald” from three main villains: “Hillary Queenton,” “Sleepy Joe” and “Comma-la-la-la.”

Meh, nothing to see here. Just business as usual for Trump and his extended family.

Yet somehow one legal but politically questionable action by Biden appears to be the equivalent of an ocean of routine Trump bad behavior.

Perhaps the legacy media needs to pay closer attention to this pledge from Patel in an interview with Steve Bannon about the fate of those who promoted the truth about the 2020 election:

“We will go out and find the conspirators — not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.”

That seems like an even brighter, shinier object to pursue.