Hunter Biden is one of the most deeply disturbed, even revolting, figures known to the American public.  Yet Miranda Devine, at the New York Post, says there's evidence that the person on whom Joe Biden is relying for political advice isn't his wife, chief of staff, or former boss, despite what everyone thinks.  Instead, it's Hunter Biden.  That would certainly explain both why and how our country is going so quickly to Hell in a handbasket.

It's almost impossible to exaggerate just what an appalling man Hunter Biden is.  Thanks to the contents of his laptop, along with well worn stories about his addiction problems, probably the best thing one can say about Hunter is that there are no stories (yet) about him torturing kittens or stealing handbags from little old ladies.  Hunter's personal habits are so revolting that one feels that even shaking hands with him would send a normal person to a decontamination unit in the hope that days of disinfecting would clean the stain.

Even before Hunter's hard drive provided the deep dive into his sordid and perverted life, we knew bad things about Hunter Biden.  We knew that he was a serious drug addict and had been kicked out of the Naval Reserve for drug use; that he was getting hugely well paying jobs from communist and other corrupt foreign governments when his only qualification was his dad's job as vice president; that, while still married to Kathleen, he began an affair with Hallie, his brother's widow, before his brother was even cold in his grave; and that he had an affair with, impregnated, and then abandoned a stripper, while still having an affair with Hallie — or maybe while still with Kathleen.  Frankly, it's easy to get confused about Hunter's affairs.

Image: Hunter Biden and his naked (and illegal) gun.

Then the laptop came along, and we learned a whole lot more.  We learned that Hunter was obsessed with filming himself naked and while having sex with prostitutes; that Hallie had to warn him away from contact with her 14-year-old daughter; that he lied in a gun application, which is a felony, but that the Secret Service covered for him; and that he was apparently giving his dad a commission ("10% for the Big Guy") on all the multi-million-dollar deals with Chinese companies (read: Chinese Communist Party companies) and other foreign companies that his dad steered his way.

That's just the beginning.  We also learned that Hunter had an internet porn addiction; that he posted his homemade porn films online; that he used his father's credit card to pay off one of his prostitute and drug binge-a-thons at an L.A. hotel; that he texted a link for a porn web page to a number he identified as "Dad"; and that he and Biden sometimes used each other's phone numbers.

Oh, and if that's not enough, federal officials in Delaware are investigating Hunter over tax fraud, money-laundering, and lobbying offenses.

Altogether, as I said, it's hard to imagine a more debauched and morally broken man than Hunter Biden.

Then there's Hunter's dad, the 79-year-old man in the White House, who's always been stupid and morally corrupt (plagiarism should be his middle name) but who now seems to have added the extra burden of growing dementia.  It's not much of a compliment to anyone to have Joe Biden call someone smart, but the fact is that Biden calls Hunter the "smartest man" he knows.  And that's where things get really scary.

Given Biden's manifest mental degeneration, there's been a lot of speculation about who's running the White House.  Jill?  Chief of staff Ron Klain?  Susan Rice?  Obama?

According to Miranda Devine, all of those guesses are wrong.  The person closest to Joe and the one giving him the most political coaching is Hunter!

It makes sense that Hunter himself says he's Biden's most important confidant.  In 2017, he told Tony Bobulinski "that he had his father's ear and got him to do what he [Hunter] wanted[.]"  Then there's the 2018 recording of Hunter, drinking and doing drugs while boasting that Biden will do anything Hunter wants.  "My dad respects me more than he respects anyone in the world ..."

But who's going to believe a narcissistic drug addict's raving?  That means nothing.

Does it mean something, though, when people who know Hunter have said this sort of thing, according to Devine?

[H]e discusses the finer points of Ukraine policy and other matters of state around the dinner table with his father on his regular weekend visits home to Delaware or Camp David.

One former friend describes him as his father's "closest adviser."

Let's just hope Hunter's friends (and former friends) are as unreliable and deluded as Hunter is.  Otherwise, this country is in greater trouble than any of us ever could have imagined.