A new op-ed in The Hill by hard lefty Steve Israel tried to make the case Friday that Hunter Biden will be irrelevant to the 2024 presidential race--a hard sell by any estimation.

Israel attempted to put a rosy spin on Biden's recent attempts to distract from his family's alleged corruption that is belied by recent polls.

"While President Biden has been talking about new CHIPS factories, lower prescription drug prices and an economy back on track, McCarthy faces calls from the MAGA elements in his caucus to shut down the government and impeach Joe Biden," Israel wrote.

"These extreme plans may fire up Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s (R-GA) base of conspiracists, but they’ll backfire catastrophically for Republicans" in battleground states and particularly for GOP House members in districts Biden won in 2020, Israel contended.

McCarthy majority in jeopardy

Israel's main contention is that it's going to hurt Republicans politically to pursue investigations into President Joe Biden and his family, including investigating allegations made to the FBI (and ignored by them and the DOJ until whistleblowers came forward) that the president and his son both received $5 million bribes from Ukrainian energy company Burisma for political favors from then-vice president Biden.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is in a sticky situation as he decides whether to impeach Biden over the allegations, Israel says.

He only has a four-vote majority and could lose up to 18 GOP battleground districts if people are tired of impeachment and don't want to deal with another one, no matter how legitimate it may be, Israel argues.

It's obvious that Democrats are fairly desperate to use any means necessary to stop Republicans from finding out that Biden actually did commit high crimes and misdemeanors against his country (of which bribery is definitely one) because they know it could bring the whole house of cards down.

Here's where Israel's logic falls apart: the truth will out, and people will see in the end that the Bidens are corrupt and they won't want that in the presidential role.

In addition, if McCarthy has any integrity, he will want to pursue truth and get to the bottom of this whole mess even if the political consequences are undesirable.

The importance of integrity

Many American voters are crying out for leaders with integrity, not just political expediency.

For all his faults, and there are many, the reason so many people like Donald Trump is that he is who he is--he doesn't pretend to be anyone he's not.

Sadly, this may be the best we can get in American politics today.

There are sycophants everywhere, and most voters know that Biden isn't really running the country, his own campaign or anything else in his state of apparent mental decline.

Once the investigation determines whether the evidence of corruption is compelling, Republicans need to act.

If Biden gets away with taking bribes, we will be nothing more than a banana republic and will quickly fall.