There’s a lot that seems unfair about President Biden’s chronically anemic polls. Like his low economic stewardship numbers despite presiding over a robust recovery from the pandemic. The fact that significantly more Americans are concerned about his mental acuity than that of the unhinged Donald Trump. That voters are, by an even wider margin, more concerned about the 80-year-old president’s age than Trump’s, even though the former president is only three years younger and clearly less fit (he’s not 215 pounds).

But here’s what’s not unfair:

That’s that

Biden is paying a political price in the polls for his son Hunter’s legal troubles.

Yes, Trump and his Republican puppets in Congress are embarrassing for their non-stop investigations, reckless exaggeration and outright lies about Hunter Bidens exploiting the family name

for business deals

while Dad was Vice President, and for baselessly implicating Joe Biden.

The Republicans in the House of Representatives are blatantly undermining and attacking the federal prosecutor (a Trump appointee) whose job it has been to investigate Hunter Biden for five years. And they are irresponsible and politically stupid in taking steps to impeach the president, apparently due to guilt by association, given the lack of actual evidence, all to divert attention from and draw false parallels to the very real criminal charges and the mountain of evidence against Trump.

Bring it on, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi mocked recently. She knows nothing can unite the Democrats and some independents behind Biden and threaten the Republicans in swing districts like impeaching Biden.

The Cornerstone

The head of an agent

jokes passing for the Republicans in the House of Representatives targeting the alleged Biden crime family would be comical if the stakes weren’t so great. Take this conversation in July between one of the senior researchers, Kentucky Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and reporters from Punchbowl News.

Reporter: You have no evidence from Joe Biden of any corruption.

Comer: We suspect he took bribes. We suspect that.

Reporter: You have an accusation.

Comer: O

K

investigated this allegation.

According to Punchbowl News, Comer

claimed that in order to impeach the president, investigators need not make a direct foreign interest payment to then-Vice President Biden in exchange for official action.

Good,

okay okay

Than. Lucky for Comer he’s not operating in court where he has to prove bribery beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even some Republicans, privately at least, are skeptical of the impeachment process.

There’s no evidence that Joe Biden got money, or that Joe Biden, you know, agreed to do anything so Hunter could get money, an unnamed Republican lawmaker recently told CNN. … I don’t think the evidence exists.

Aside from the bad faith of Republicans in the House of Representatives, there is another reason to be hesitant to condemn the father for his son’s sins. The family tragedies that bind the men, and Hunter Biden’s acknowledged struggle to overcome drug addiction, elicit sympathy from all but the most hardened partisans. Joe Biden’s love and concern for an erring son is palpable.

And yet. Tragedies and suffering can soothe, they are not an excuse. Hunter attracted Congressional notoriety and attention, however unfairly, when he unmistakably used his father’s name to win business contracts in China, Ukraine and elsewhere. Live by the famous name, die by it.

The best thing Joe Biden could have done as a father and public servant would have been to shine a spotlight on any attempt by his son to make a career out of his proximity to political power. Washington is full of money grabbers selling their connections. But things aren’t looking good for the son of a senator, vice president and now president. Think about it: Hunter could have become an artist long ago instead.

Not only did Joe Biden not just block his son’s path to influence trading, he also repeatedly allowed their phone conversations to be played over loudspeakers at Hunters meetings with foreign business partners, as if to polish the brand.

But those are hardly untouchable things.

Hunter Biden is being charged this month with a gun possession offense, after a plea deal related to that offense and two tax bills fell apart. But again, there is no crime

credible

alleged against the president.

Still, it’s not at all surprising that many voters definitely punish him.

A new CNN poll released Thursday found that six in 10 Americans believe Biden was involved in his son’s foreign affairs dealings while he was vice president; four in 10 say they believe Biden acted illegally. Such sentiment cannot help but contribute to the president’s dismal approval ratings and polls showing him in a statistical dead heat in hypothetical confrontations with Trump and several other Republican candidates and behind Nikki Haley.

Joe Biden is a decent, competent and empathetic public servant. In the decades I’ve defeated him in Congress and the White House, I’ve never heard of any cheating on his part.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, is a narcissist and a criminal defendant who continues to erode the very foundations of democracy

. B

y the way, his

relative, son-in-law Jared Kushner

has actually made some serious money, having turned his former White House job into billions in investment dollars from the Saudis and other Middle Eastern sources.

It’s hard to fathom that Trump and Biden are neck and neck.

But politics is no bag, and Biden has been in the game for 51 years. When it came to his son’s business dealings and the unavoidable stench that emanated from them, he should have known better.

@jackiekcalmes