As for the current political storm, the elder Biden brought most of it on himself. Hunter Biden was being prosecuted for trivial issues; Republicans have been blowing smoke about more serious crimes for years and have never produced any evidence of it. But we can all see Hunter Biden was paid a lot of money for essentially nothing more than his being Joe Biden’s son, and the elder Biden should have taken direct public aim at his son’s business positions and disowned them a long time ago.

Now, how a family deals with the wrenching problems of a substance abuser is personal and painful. Hunter Biden’s drug-fuelled activities, however, were appalling and went on for years. From the outside at least, it seems as if the family too often enabled Hunter’s destructive behaviour instead of forcing him to deal with the consequences. And this, too, should be laid at Joe Biden’s feet.

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That said, there are two arguments for the pardon. The first is common human decency. The ongoing theatre of cruelty the Republicans have orchestrated against Hunter Biden has been disgusting and immoral. And then, of course, we can all see that the goons Trump has in mind to run the Justice Department seem set on continuing to make Hunter’s life miserable for years to come. Seen in that light, the pardon was arguably defensible.

What isn’t, however, is the ongoing coverage. I just checked The New York Times homepage. It has since added another news story on the pardon – and three opinion columns. I don’t recall Trump ever being questioned about his scores of corrupt pardons in a debate, whereas you can be sure that Biden will be questioned about this single act for years to come.