Forgive me for sounding cynical, but I have a hard time buying that President Joe Biden’s lackluster acknowledgement of his seventh grandchild is fully sincere.
A few weeks ago, I called on Biden to recognize his 4-year-old granddaughter Navy Joan Roberts, who lives in Arkansas. Navy, the out-of-wedlock daughter of the president’s son Hunter Biden and Lunden Roberts, is just as much the president’s grandchild as any of his other ones. The parents recently settled a child support lawsuit brought by the mother.
So I give credit to President Biden for at least saying the words “grandchildren” and “Navy” in the same sentence, which is progress of a sort.
He hadn’t done that until last week, instead making a point of talking about his “six” grandchildren and ignoring this innocent little girl. Even White House aides had been instructed to mention only the six grandchildren, according to The New York Times.
Biden campaigns on ‘decency.’Refusing to acknowledge his granddaughter is anything but.
A Friday night news dump? Really?
The timing of Biden’s comments says a lot. In the newspaper world, we call these kinds of announcements “Friday night news dumps.” In other words, they are typically stories that politicians – or others in the hot seat – want to get as little attention as possible.
That was clearly the case here. The Biden family wanted to bury this story.
In a statement to People magazine, which posted at 5 p.m. Friday, the president said: “This is not a political issue, it’s a family matter. Jill and I only want what is best for all of our grandchildren, including Navy.”
I agree that this is not a political matter, at least not entirely, but it’s also not just any other family dealing with a difficult situation. For Navy, any involvement with her famous grandparents could be life-changing.
More relevant to the public discussion: Biden has always made a big deal about the importance of family, compassion and decency. That carefully crafted image is a part of his political brand.
Given the real hardships and loss in the president’s life, that makes his actions here even harder to understand.
News coverage prompted Biden’s response
Here’s what appears to have happened to spur Biden to recognize his granddaughter. The story about Navy’s existence and Biden’s refusal to acknowledge her is not new. Conservative-leaning media have covered it for years.
Biden didn’t care about that. He probably figured his progressive supporters wouldn’t hear about the child from the conservative news sources.
Mainstream media had pretty much ignored the story – until last month. Things started to change when The New York Times published a column by Maureen Dowd (not a conservative), calling out the president’s indefensible behavior.
Then others in the media had to follow suit. It turns out when more people found out about how the president had handled the matter, they weren’t happy about it, including some of his supporters.
Consequently, Biden made his statement.
That makes this situation even sadder. Navy may someday learn that her grandfather – the president of the United States – decided to admit her existence only after it became politically expedient for him to do so.
Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at ijacques@usatoday.com or on Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques
