VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: The Biden family caricatures

During the 2020 campaign at least eight women alleged that Joe Biden in the past had serially and improperly touched, kissed or grabbed them. One, Tara Reade, alleged she was sexually assaulted by Biden, who denied the charge.

Yet Biden himself finally was forced to apologize for some of his behavior. Or as he said at the time, “I get it.” He claimed that he would no longer improperly invade the “private space” of women and had meant no harm.

But Biden’s obnoxious conduct extended well beyond the eight accusers.

Women as diverse as former Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Biden’s own daughter-in-law Kathleen Buhle have both alleged in their memoirs that Biden made them feel uncomfortable through his intrusive touching and embraces.

On several occasions, Biden developed a strange tic of becoming too physical with young girls. He habitually attempted to hug them while blowing in their hair.

His daughter Ashley wrote in her diary that she feared her past adolescent showers with her father had been inappropriate. Even as president, Biden has weirdly called out young girls in his audiences to note their attractiveness.

On one occasion, the president interrupted his speech to address a female acquaintance — enlightening the crowd that, “We go back a long way. She was 12 and I was 30, but anyway …”

As a result, Biden has likely been warned repeatedly to forgo intimate references to young women. He has no doubt also been advised by his handlers to stop all close, supposedly innocent contact with young girls and children — if for no other reason than to prevent his political opponents from charging that Joe is “creepy,” “perverse” or “sick.”

And yet like some addict, Biden cannot stop — regardless of the eerie image he projects around the world. This month, the president jumped the proverbial shark by embracing a young child in a crowd while on the tarmac of the Helsinki airport.

In his strangest act yet, Biden kept moving his mouth near the face of the young girl. He was apparently trying to nibble the youngster, almost in turkey-gobbling fashion. She recoiled.

No matter — Biden continued at her shoulder. Again, she flinched.

Biden then reverted to form and sought with a second try to smell her hair and nestle closer.

Had any other major politician in the age of #MeToo committed such an unnerving stunt, he would probably have been ostracized by colleagues and mercilessly hammered by the media. Not in Biden’s case.

The apparent media subtext was that it was either just “Old Joe” trying to be too friendly, or a symptom of his cognitive decline and thus not attributable to any sinister urge.

Senescence now provides paradoxical cover for Biden’s creepiness — newfound exemption for his old boorish behavior.

Also, during the president’s latest antics, cocaine was found in the West Wing of the White House. All the White House spokespeople had to do was to reassure the public that the drugs most certainly did not belong to first son Hunter Biden — despite being a frequent guest resident of the White House and a former crack-cocaine addict.

Instead, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dismissed reporters for requesting such clarification.

Then the official narrative went through several contortions, as to where and how the bag of cocaine was found.

The disinformation only added suspicion that the White House either would not or could not be transparent about the discovery of illicit drugs abandoned at the very nexus of American governance.

Requests for clarity were understandable not just because Hunter has had a long history of drug addiction. He also has a troubling habit of leaving a public trail of evidence of his drug use.

Hunter forgot his crack pipe in a rental car. He abandoned his laptop that contained evidence of his own felonious behavior. And his unlawfully registered handgun turned up in a dumpster near a school.

In sum, the president and his son both have quite disturbing and all-too public bad habits.

Americans in response assume both would be careful not to offer the tiniest shred of evidence that their pathologies continue.

White House handlers should keep the president from even getting near small children and young women. And they should be just as unambiguous that Hunter Biden has never, and would never, even get too close to illicit drugs while inside the White House.

Sadly they can do neither.

These suspicions are force multipliers of the mounting evidence of Biden family corruption. They feed narratives of heartlessness about disowning a granddaughter born out of wedlock. And they add to worries of presidential senility.

The result is the caricature of a first family: one that is utterly dysfunctional — and increasingly detrimental to the country at large.

Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and a classicist and historian at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. Contact him at authorvdh@gmail.com.