The Biggest Mistake Obama Has Yet to Make

How Joe Biden's Corruption May Take Down What's Left of the Obama Legacy

Joe Biden has been in the Senate since the age of 29. For decades, he was relatively well-known to those who followed American politics. He was never—not in his entire career—known as the smartest guy in the room. He was blatantly racist at times. He has always stumbled over his words. He stood behind some controversial legislation. He had elastic ethics and a tendency to sniff babies. He was guilty of plagiarism and he accused the truck driver in the accident that killed his wife and baby daughter of being a drunk driver—when the accident investigation in Delaware found the truck driver was not drunk, was not at fault, and stopped to render aid. In other words, Joe Biden was a jerk. He didn’t just become a jerk, he always was one.

So what on earth made Barack Obama select Joe Biden as his vice president? The word from a 2019 article by Ed Kilgore in The Intelligencer stated that Obama started VP shopping in June of 2008 in a hush-hush closed-door series of discussions that included Eric Holder and (of all people) Caroline Kennedy. I would not take Caroline Kennedy’s advice on how to spell Kennedy, much less reach a political decision, but perhaps Obama was starstruck or valued Caroline’s connections. This brain trust allegedly came up with a list of 20 contenders, but we are more likely to see Epstein’s client list in our lifetimes than the original list of Obama considerations for VP.

A logical contender, Hillary Clinton, never made the short list. Hillary had attempted her own presidential run in 2008 and then bowed out to let Obama get the office; some people thought that Obama would gift her with a consolation VP slot for her cooperation. However, Obama did not want her on the ticket. There is a story in the book Shattered about Hillary’s subsequent 2016 Presidential campaign (the next opportunity she had to run) that describes how Barack Obama, in a discussion with Valerie Jarrett and his wife, stated that he did not think Hillary should run for President in 2016. After her loss in 2016, it seems how that the only way she’s getting into the White House in 2024 is if she buys a ticket for the tour. Back in 2016, the ungrateful Mr. Obama much preferred Liz Warren to make a presidential run, but in 2016, Liz demurred. It is fair to say that Barack, like many others, is not a big Hillary fan. The only reward she got from Barack was the job as Secretary of State and her chance to run some dubious but lucrative charities.

Tim Kaine was allegedly on the VP list as were Evan Bayh and maybe Kathleen Sebelius. The crazy thing is that Biden got the nod.

According to the biography Rising Star, Obama is a very calculating man with a keen eye for optics. In other words, Obama was likely to spend more time searching for the “right look” as for the “right person.” When it came to a VP, policy did not matter much to Obama, since Obama was the big dog on the porch and the VP was not there to help with that. The VP was only a visual cardboard cutout to balance the ticket.

Considering just appearances, Biden was a good fit. He was white, he was a Washington denizen, and he was Catholic… all things that Obama was not. If you were skeptical a junior Senator could run the country, well, Biden was an old hand at politics. If you were skeptical about a Black President, nobody in American politics is whiter than Joe Biden. He was a nice counterpoint.

Another angle to consider is that even back in 2008, Biden was already old. Obama may have been figuring that by the time he exited his two terms in 2016, Biden would be far too old to launch a Presidential bid. Obama likely wanted a VP with no Presidential aspirations to keep the internal Sturm und Drang at the White House to a minimum. He wanted a compliant VP who wouldn’t meddle in actual government stuff. As the consummate alpha male, Obama knew that it was not helpful to populate his inner political circle with potential competitors. Biden was to be a second-tier player and know his place.

Well, that wouldn’t be the first time Barry got it all wrong.

Obama always knew Biden was not Presidential material, so it may be concluded that he wanted an old white guy who looked good in a suit, talked too much, smiled for the cameras, but never actually did anything. I know Obama had no respect for Biden, because when Biden first wanted to run for POTUS in 2020, Obama allegedly told him, “You don’t have to do this, Joe.”

Even now that Obama’s hand-picked VP is actually in the White House, Obama cannot distance himself enough from Joe. At a public White House event where Obama and Biden were both in attendance, Obama snubbed Joe in an almost heartless way. Joe tugged on Obama’s shoulder, but Obama could not be bothered to even look at him. See for yourself how sad this is.

So why did Obama want Joe Biden of all people? Obama rarely does anything haphazardly. So what were his intentions?

Surprisingly, Obama may wanted a racist guy on the ticket. Obama may have believed that Biden would draw in voters for him who otherwise would not have voted for a Black man. And make no mistake, Biden was and is a racist. Joe Biden gave speeches on the Senate floor, immortalized in the Federal Register where he referred to his Black constituents by an ugly word that starts with n and rhymes with trigger. He talked about school integration as creating a “racial jungle.” He adamantly opposed the emigration to the United States of Vietnamese refugees in the chaotic “boat people” catastrophe after the war. Obama knew all of this when he picked Joe. It might have been partly why he picked Joe.

Biden was never considered a pillar of integrity in his Senate days, but his corruption scandals, such as they were at the time, were considered trivial. Maybe in the swamp, everybody looks a little bit like an alligator. Despite his ability to read the room, Obama overlooked the depth of Biden’s corruption. It may be that he figured it would never be uncovered, so it was a non-issue. Or perhaps he knew the corruption and figured it wasn’t that much different from what everyone else was doing. A lot of the really murky stuff that Biden is involved in now did not start till after he entered Obama’s orbit.

Obama allegedly believed that Joe Biden had expertise in foreign policy. Obama perceived himself as being vulnerable on foreign policy, so he named Hillary I-Never-Met-A-War-I-Couldn’t-Make-Money-From Clinton to his State Department and thought Biden would be an asset to the ticket because of his expertise in foreign policy. This was a wild misstep by Obama. Biden never reached a foreign policy decision in his entire political career that was correct. No one could steer the country off a cliff in terms of foreign policy faster than Biden and Clinton. But this erroenous assessment of Biden as a foreign policy expert may have factored into why Obama picked Biden as Vice President.

Obama surely thought that Joe would appeal to more homespun Americans. No President in history was as exotic as Barack Obama—from his Hawaiian school years to his school days at a madrassah in Indonesia, Obama had an unusual background. He was a surfer kid from Hawaii, a Harvard law school graduate, and the son of academic single mother. His early adult years were spent in Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. So Obama likely thought “Scranton Joe” would appeal to yokels in the flyover states. After all, we yokels are too stupid to be impressed with such a sophisticate as Obama. Biden was there to “dumb things down” when Obama needed it in those states populated by blue-collar workers and farmers and other ne’er-do-wells.

Obama has a very lofty opinion of his intellect, and he is indeed a very cerebral character. Biden, on the other hand, was a chatty older man, eager to shake hands and prattle on about nothing. In his younger years, Biden was quick with a smile and a dad joke, which Obama probably thought made him “likeable” to the people who actually do the work in this country. Obama was so out of touch with the heart of America that he looked at Biden and saw him as “typical American.”

Obama was wrong about Biden, as he was wrong about so many other things. In a cruel twist of fate, Obama’s two terms have expired and the hapless Mr. Biden now sits in the Oval Office. Obama’s much-prized legacy as one of the most consequential progressive Presidents in history has been inextricably linked to the aging buffoon in the White House who falls off bicycles, sniffs babies, and announces he’s cured cancer or is building a railroad over the Pacific Ocean. Obama’s legacy is chained to a man about whom Depends jokes are made.

Obama picked the wrong guy, made him a monster, and now is handcuffed to him. Had Obama not elevated Biden to Vice President, Biden would be moldering away in the Senate to this day. It is Obama who made Biden the President he is today. And Obama is joined to him.

Many say that Biden’s presidency is just Obama’s third term. There are good reasons for that—Obama still maintains a house in D.C. and Biden is putting forth policies and ideas that contradict his earlier positions but would align nicely with a very radical progressive takeover of America. Obama may have found he can do things through the luckless Mr. Biden than he could have never done on his own. Biden may be allowing Obama to work in the shadows as our republic crumbles.

But Biden’s corruption will be Obama’s great undoing.

When it comes to the Biden crime family, even CNN does not call these things “baseless allegations.” There is considerable evidence that Biden stole classified documents and retained them illegally, that he had suspicious money-laundering-type dealings (over 150 Suspicious Activity Reports from banks), and that foreign governments, notably China and Ukraine, paid large amounts to Jim and Hunter Biden for nobody-knows-what. This may take years, but it will eventually all come out. Biden may go down in history as our most corrupt President. Alex Marlow’s book Breaking Biden is a good high-level summary of the miles and miles of sketchy Biden dealings.

All of that is going to boomerang on Obama. Where did Biden learn these fancy pay-for-play shenanigans? I doubt Hunter thought them up—he had his own hobbies. I doubt Biden figured them out; he would have employed them earlier in his Senate career when family money sometimes got tight. Biden was corrupt as a Senator, but it was not until Biden got around Obama that he turned into a criminal mastermind.

The problem is, Biden isn’t qualified to be any kind of mastermind. His criminal enterprise is falling apart at the seams.

But now think of this. Barack Obama rose from relatively humble beginnings. Early in his adult life, he worked ordinary jobs and lived in run-down apartments. His short career as an activist in Chicago did not pay much, despite the fact that he held a law degree. Today its reported the Obamas are worth over $70 million. (That is an estimate, of course. The New York Post says they are worth over $135 million.) Where did all of this money come from? True, there are book deals and Netflix deals and such… but do you know anyone who ever bought an Obama book? Donald Trump is a billionaire but at least I’ve been to Trump Towers, seen his glitzy Jersey casinos back in the day, and watched The Apprentice on TV. How did Obama get a nine- or ten-figure income when nobody knows what he did besides serve as President? Do you know what movies he produced? Online sources say that Obama made considerable money in investments, which is possible, but this is some high-octane rags-to-riches story. The Pelosis amassed a huge fortune in investments (some say insider trading) but the Pelosis took decades to do what the Obamas did in a few years.

It is possible that the exposure of Biden’s crime family—the one he tried to run himself with the other two stooges, Hunter and Jim—will help unravel the mystery that dare not speak its name—where did Obama get all those millions? How did Joe get the idea to shake down foreign governments? How did Joe build up his criminal enterprise?

Hunter Biden and Barack Obama have an interesting history. In 2008, when Obama tapped Joe Biden for VP, it was announced that Hunter was going to resign his job as a lobbyist in Washington. Hunter worked lobbying Congress (which is legal if not exactly ethical) representing biotech companies, academic institutions, and online gambling companies. It was not until 2013 that Hunter started the Chinese company BHR with some colleagues. By this time, his father was Vice President of the United States. In 2014, Hunter jumped on board the board of Burisma and took home $800,000 in 2013 and $1.2M in 2014. Hunter graduated from lobbyist-hustler to international political criminal insider with one event: the election of his father to Obama’s Vice President.

Peter Schweizer wrote a book called Secret Empires: How Our Politicians Hide Corruption and Enrich Their Families and Friends. Obama features prominently in the book. According to Schweizer, Obama’s administration had a particular economic MO. They would target an industry, for instance declaring them a threat to the environment, and attack them either in the media or legally or with regulatory chokeholds. As the companies hemorrhaged value, Obama’s cronies could jump in and buy up assets at bargain basement prices. Then the assaults would stop and the companies would zoom back into profitability.

And Schweizer says VP Biden and old friend from Senate, John Kerry (then Secretary of State for Obama) were making dubious “investments” in Chinese equity during Obama’s presidency. This is where Hunter’s company Rosemont Seneca comes in; in fact, Hunter was pretty active while Obama was president. There is enough of a smoking gun to say that Biden’s corruption scandals may very well take down the Obama legacy as well.

Funny how karma never loses an address.