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On the evening of March 25, 1996, I sat down to what I expected to be an enjoyable Monday evening at home alone. The family was out of town, and the Oscar presentations were set to begin on television. I was ready to dig into some casserole made from my mother’s favorite recipe when the phone rang. It was the governor.
Evan Bayh, then a second-term governor with aspirations of higher office, had seen the story I reported on television that evening and didn’t like it. Specifically, he objected to the fact that I told the audience he had flip-flopped.
Understand that the governor had a press secretary whose job was to communicate with Statehouse reporters like me, so a call from the governor was beyond unusual. It was my first. So, I had little choice but to listen patiently while he made his case. It took a half hour or so. As I recall, he didn’t take issue with anything in my story except the use of the term flip-flop.
Here’s the background: Republicans in the state Senate had been advancing a plan to cut the auto-excise tax, known as the most hated tax in Indiana. Bayh had opposed the GOP plan, saying the state couldn’t afford the proposed cut and the budget hit that came with it. On March 25, at the end of the legislative session, he suddenly came out with his own plan for a tax cut that was strikingly similar to the GOP plan. In my world, that’s a flip-flop. I also understand that it’s a dirty word in politics, and no candidate wants to see it in a future opponent’s campaign ad.
I was reminded of all this last week when President Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. Biden and his press secretary had gone on the record repeatedly saying he would not pardon Hunter, who was convicted of federal crimes that include gun possession by an addict and tax evasion. He was also investigated for other crimes. The president said he trusted the justice system. And then he granted a sweeping pardon. It’s a pardon that covers all crimes committed over an 11-year period. Flip-flop.
Biden is being defended by those who point out that President George H.W. Bush pardoned his son Neil after a scandal in the savings and loan industry. That means, they say, there is a precedent. Others point to incoming President Donald Trump’s promises to pursue Hunter and others by using a Justice Department that will answer to him. But that’s not a development that took place after Biden’s promises.
Biden left no wiggle room in his statements, and whether Hunter deserves protection or not, we were misled. It doesn’t matter that it was by a guy who thought he would be serving a second term when he made those promises.
As a result, I believe Biden’s legacy has been damaged. His character can be called into question and, unlike Bayh, he didn’t talk to even one reporter. He fled to Angola on a foreign mission and even avoided the reporters on his plane.
Bayh, as you probably know, went on to serve in the U. S. Senate and lists the auto-excise tax cut as one of his major accomplishments, calling it the biggest tax cut in Indiana history.
And I, after reheating the casserole and missing Whoopi Goldberg’s monologue on the Oscars, resolved to call a flip-flop a flip-flop when I see one.•
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Shella hosted WFYI’s “Indiana Week in Review” for 25 years and covered Indiana politics for WISH-TV for more than three decades. Send comments to ibjedit@ibj.com.
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