Would Biden transform US into ChicagoWay?

Is Joe Biden the “big guy” engaged in foreign influence peddling, about to transform the AmericanWay into the Chicago Way if he’s elected president?

Or is Biden, even after 47 years inWashington politics, a thoroughly moral man and the innocent victim of a last-minute political dirty trick by discredited allies of President Donald Trump?

That’s for you to decide. You’re a voter. You have a mind. All this is part of an “October surprise,” although it doesn’t always happen in October. It could and has happened in other seasons in fall, or late spring, to Republicans and Democrats.

It is the last-minute charge leveled as voters go to the polls, and voters should be properly skeptical. I’ve been covering politics long enough to knowthat salacious last-minute charges, involving sex, domestic abuse, corruption, mob influence or even the sin of damaging an opponent’s campaign yard signs, can be dubious at best.

It’s not just a national political phenomenon. The last-minute “surprise” is being used in statehouse races now, including here in Illinois. It’s as subtle as a brick thrown through a campaign office window.

But being properly skeptical isn’t the same as having complete lack of curiosity aboutHunter Biden’s dealings and about whether his father, whowas vice president and who might become president, used political leverage to help.

Yet many outlets covering Biden’s campaign don’t seem that curious.

“We don’twant towaste our time on stories that are not really stories, andwe don’twant to waste the listeners’ and readers’ time on stories that are just pure distractions,” reasonedTerence Samuel, an editor forNational Public Radio, in an interview last week explainingwhyNPRhas avoided the story. “And quite frankly, that’s wherewe ended up, thiswas … a politically driven event, andwe decided to treat it thatway.”

But the Biden story is out there, despite mainstream media outlets ignoring it, despite the efforts of Twitter and Facebook to suppress its circulation.

The story about damaging emails purportedly to and from Hunter Biden on questionable foreign business deals simmered initially on the pages of theNew York Post, thenwas brought to a boil by President DonaldTrump who is desperate to rip the lid off and serve it piping hot.

All Biden and his sonHunter had to dowas say unequivocally the damaging emailswere false, that the laptop onwhich the emails did not belong toHunter.

But the Biden camp has not said that.

Instead Joe Biden has been ending his daily campaign schedule early since the story broke and relying on media allies to discredit the already-discredited sources, such as Republican operatives Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon.

But it is not going away. In the last presidential debate, moderator KristenWelker ofNBCquestioned Biden about the email story andwhetherHunter’s foreign business dealings in Ukraine and Chinawere unethical.

“Nothingwas unethical. Here’s what— the deal,” Biden said. “With regard to Ukraine, we had this whole question about whether or not, because hewas on the board, I later learned, of Burisma, a company, that somehowI had done somethingwrong. Yet every single solitary person when hewas going through his impeachment, testifying under oath, whoworked for him said I didmy job impeccably. I carried outU.S. policy. Not one single solitary thingwas out of line, not a single thing.”

Biden said he never took money froma foreign government.

As I keep telling you, it’s always the things they don’t say that matter. It’s always the holes in the sentences that count. Joe Biden did not say the emails found on that laptopwere fabricated. Joe Biden did not say that the laptop wasn’t his son’s. He did not say the emailswere spliced by some Russian spy.

Biden has been around politics for half a century. He knows what he’s doing. His strategy? Run out the clock. He might get away with it.

But imagine:

If a laptop full of thousands of emails suggesting a powerful political father’s influence helped family members get rich, and that father’s namewasMichaelMadigan, IllinoisHouse speaker and chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, would things be different?

Many Illinois influencers— pundits, columnists, reporters, good government groups— would be demanding answers and standing at his front stoop with microphones. Theywould not think it was a distraction or dismiss it as politically driven and therefore easy to ignore. They’d go after it.

Afew elected officials are calling forMadigan’s head, asking him to step down as speaker, as Madigan finds himself embroiled in amassive federal corruption investigation rolling fromSpringfield to Chicago. Key Democrats have been indicted and some are cooperating. Madigan has not been charged with a crime.

But ask yourself here, at the intersection of TheChicagoWay: What if that powerful fatherwas not Biden but carried the last nameMadigan, Daley, Lipinski, Stroger, Burke, Mell, Rita, Jones, Turner, Berrios?

Would you be seeing such a lack of curiosity?

No.

Joe Biden isn’t running for mayor of Chicago or speaker of the IllinoisHouse. He’s running for president.

It’s perfectlyOKbe skeptical of an “October surprise.” But if you’re fromChicago or Illinois, you alsowouldwant some answers. And that doesn’t make you a conspiracy theorist.

Just don’t toss all your curiosity into the river. You might need it someday.