My Take: Biden's grandchild conundrum

EDITOR'S NOTE: On July 28, President Joe Biden for the first time publicly acknowledged his seventh grandchild. Hunter Biden’s paternity was established by DNA testing after Roberts sued for child support, and the two parties recently resolved outstanding child support issues.

President Biden has seven grandchildren. The seventh is a beautiful 4-year-old girl, Navy Joan, who lives with her mother in Arkansas.

The mother is 20 years younger than the little girl’s father, Hunter Biden. The mother is most often described in news accounts as a former stripper, (a legal occupation). This pejorative casts a dark shadow on the mother’s character.

Actually, the mother, Lunden Roberts has many honorable achievements. She was working as a stripper (a legal occupation) to support herself while attending George Washington University as a postgraduate student. She is a graduate of Arkansas State University.

Lunden Roberts was an honor student at Southside Batesville High School Arkansas. There, she was an all-conference and all-state basketball player and an all-state softball player. She was a four-year varsity letter winner. She averaged 21 points per game during her four-year high school career.

There is much negative news about Hunter Biden and there is no need to repeat most of it. However, one bit of information I ran across surprised me. Unlike his brother Beau, who distinguished himself in the military while serving in Iraq, Hunter received a direct commission from the Navy and was discharged after failing a drug test — cocaine.

Will historians be kind to this presidency? What will President Biden’s legacy be? Will rejecting his granddaughter have any weight to historians who ultimately have the last word? “The truth will out,” is an old adage and a profound truism. Unless they are revisionists, historians are objective and don’t have the same motivations as many of those reporting current events.

Consider Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States. He is beloved and honored today. During his tenure, he had some strong opposition. Politics then was a rough enterprise, as it is today. Nevertheless, this Founding Father did great things. He was the author of the Declaration of Independence, author of the Statute of Religious Freedom of Virginia, and father of the University of Virginia. During his presidency, he doubled the size of the United States with the Louisiana Purchase.

As great as he was, as beloved as he is, he was a flawed man, as most of us are. The evidence is strong that he fathered six children with Sally Hemings, a biracial slave. Sally lived in the Jefferson household working as a maid who cared for Jefferson’s wife, Martha.

Martha was Sally’s half-sister. Martha and Sally’s father was John Wayles (they had different mothers).

Like Sally Hemings, baby Navy Joan and the story will never go away. It will always be in the annals of U.S. history. Can this negative story be turned around and made more palatable? How can President Biden be made to look less like a heartless, mean-spirited, snob?

Perhaps he could invite his granddaughter to a Christmas tree lighting? Perhaps he could hang a seventh sock at Christmas designated for Navy Joan instead of the family dog?

Perhaps he could invite the little girl to an Easter Egg roll on the White House lawn? I cannot imagine anyone thinking this would be a bad thing.

Thomas Jefferson freed Sally Hemings’ children. That was a good thing.

— Raymond Olson is a resident of Cheboygan.

This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: My Take: Biden's grandchild conundrum