By Bill Juneau, July 31, 2023After President Biden had turned up his nose on his 7th grandchild, a girl fathered by his crack-addicted son, Hunter, he was raked over by friends and foes alike as a mean, selfish, and lying politician whose claim of being a devoted family man was "inauthentic" political garble.
"Roll it back," his advisers told him, and so Biden did just that. He announced and sent out a statement to People magazine that he was the "grandfather of seven," and his family tree now included the four-year-old daughter of Hunter's and that the child's privacy needed to be protected.
He had no apology for his earlier lie, and his egotistical stance was typical of the Biden posture displayed by him over the past 52 years as an elected public servant.
President Joe Biden's wild, drug-choked son had fathered a child with a strip tease artist, Lunden Alexis Roberts, 32, with whom he had become acquainted as she performed at the swinging Mpire Gentleman's Club in Washington, D.C., a spot where Hunter was well known to hang out and where he was fast and loose with his bankroll.
Hunter's daughter with Lunden Roberts was born in November of 2018, and had been named Navy Joan Roberts. In 2017, Hunter and his wife Kathleen Buhle were divorced after some 24 years of being married, and it was around the time that Hunter was having a romantic interlude with his late brother's widow, Hallie Biden. Like Hunter and others in the Biden family, Hallie, too, was a heavy crack user and had done a stint at a rehab facility.
In 2019, following a six day courtship, Hunter married Melissa Cohen of South Africa, and in 2020, their son, Beau, named after his late brother Beau who had died in 2015 of a brain tumor, was born.
Following the birth of Navy Joan Roberts, Hunter denied that he was the father, and Navy's mother filed a lawsuit charging him with paternity. After several years of litigation, Hunter submitted to blood and DNA testing, and a Circuit Judge in Arkansas ruled that Hunter was the father of Navy and was ordered to pay child support. The baby's mother sought to have Navy's last name changed to Biden, but she later withdrew the request after Hunter agreed to place expensive art work and investments in Navy Joan's name.
Hunter's fight to escape the paternity of Navy Roberts was pretty much ignored by the Democratic party controlled media until the Arkansas court landed on the President's son for his his behavior and effort to ignore his new daughter and his strip- dancing paramour.
When word from Arkansas circulated, reporters began asking President Biden's press secretary about the new grandchild and that led Biden to announce that "I have six grandchildren." His aides and staffers were put on notice that any comment about a seventh grandchild could cost them politically.
Perhaps it was the New York Times' liberal columnist Maureen Dowd who called out president Biden for his savage disregard of his seventh granddaughter born out of wedlock.
Dowd noted that the President repeatedly has said that for him, the absolute most important thing is family — it is the heart of his political narrative — his stock in trade. "Callously scarring Navy's life just as it gets started, undercuts that." Dowd wrote.
"What the Navy Roberts story reveals, said Dowd, "is how dated and inauthentic the 80-year-old president’s view of family is."
On Friday, July 28, shortly after the comments by the NYT writer, Biden did his turn about, and acknowledged his new grandchild. Said Biden:
“Our son Hunter and Navy’s mother, Lunden, are working together to foster a relationship that is in the best interests of their daughter, preserving her privacy as much as possible going forward.
“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."
Bill Juneau worked for 25 years as a reporter and night city editor at the Chicago Tribune. Subsequently he became a partner in a law firm and also served as a village prosecutor and as a consultant to the Cook County Circuit Court and to the Cook County Medical Examiner. He is currently writing columns and the 'Florida Bill' blog.
