One of the many lessons America should have learned from the catastrophic presidency of Donald Trump is that the nation’s political norms are no longer sufficient to ensure a baseline of ethical behavior in Washington. Time and again, Trump trampled those norms, shamelessly using his office to enrich his businesses, coddle his friends and punish his foes.
President Joe Biden has restored respect for those norms with the mere act of behaving like a normal president. And he has used executive orders to shore up ethical standards throughout his administration. The fact that Biden’s critics are grasping at a silly non-scandal over his son Hunter Biden’s art sales just dramatizes how much better the ethics situation has gotten.
But all that will last only as long as this presidency does. Biden promised during the campaign to push a sweeping ethics package through Congress. Six months in, he still hasn’t pursued it. He should, while the urgency of the topic is still fresh.
