After his spokeswoman defended blatant rules-breaker Gwen Berry, an Olympic athlete who turned her back on the U.S. flag at an awards podium, Joe Biden now says he's all in for the Olympic rules for everyone else.

That's the only thing to be concluded with his latest statement here, as reported by the Daily Caller:

President Joe Biden said "rules are rules" when asked about Sha'Carri Richardson's suspension from the Olympic Team following a positive drug test.

"Everybody knows what the rules were going in," the president told reporters. "Whether those should remain the rules is a different issue."

Richardson, if you haven't been following, is one of those examples of "hard cases."  She tested positive for marijuana use following her biological mother's death and received a disproportionate, draconian punishment for it from U.S. Olympic officials, who effectively ousted her from any hopes for an individual medal in the Olympics coming up in Tokyo.  She was Team USA's top runner with a strong prospect for a gold medal and responded to what must have been a horrific disappointment, with grace and class:

"I apologize," Richardson said on NBC's "Today" show. "As much as I'm disappointed, I know that when I step on the track I represent not only myself, I represent a community that has shown great support, great love. ... I apologize for the fact that I didn't know how to control my emotions or deal with my emotions during that time."

Now in comes Joe Biden to play Mr. Rulemaster, suddenly all in for rules for Richardson.

That would be the same Joe Biden whose spokesweasel, Jen Psaki, said this last week, according to the New York Post:

"I haven't spoken to the president specifically about this, but I know he's incredibly proud to be an American and has great respect for the anthem and all that it represents, especially for our men and women serving in uniform all around the world," Psaki said at her daily press briefing.

Psaki added: "He would also say, of course, that part of that pride in our country means recognizing there are moments where we are — as a country, haven't lived up to our highest ideals. And it means respecting the rights of people granted to them in the Constitution to peacefully protest."

Berry went so far on Saturday as to say she was "pissed" to hear "The Star-Spangled Banner" after winning a bronze medal at the US Olympic Track & Field Team Trials.

So by Biden's logic, if Richardson had just smoked pot to show wokeness instead of salve a private grief, she too would have been worthy of getting off the hook.

Because the fact is, Berry's protest is very much against the International Olympic rules.

The International Olympic Committee will not allow kneeling or other forms of protest at the Olympic Games, which begin next month in Tokyo. Athletes will not be allowed to participate in protests or demonstrations on the field of play, during an official ceremony or at the podium, and those who do will be punished, per a TMZ report.

Kristy Coventry, the IOC's Athlete's Commission chief, will likely gain massive social media support across the U.S. after she said: "A very clear majority of athletes said that they think it's not appropriate to demonstrate or express their views on the field of play, at the official ceremonies or at the podium.

"So, our recommendation is to preserve the podium, field of play and official ceremonies from any kind of protest or demonstrations or acts perceived as such," continued Coventry.

Berry, a third-place finisher well past her prime, did her tantrum act against the flag in June, overshadowing the significant athletic accomplishments of her Olympic rivals who bested her in competition at the Olympic trials.

The IOC said they polled athletes about this and found that 70% wanted nothing to do with fist-waving and other political protests at the podium, which is why they became the IOC rules.

But, well, Biden supported her anyway.  Rules are always OK to break, provided one is a wokester, just not if one has a moment of weakness.

He's not just big on breaking rules for the woke; he's, if anything, even bigger on breaking rules for family members.  Somewhere, Hunter Biden is smiling, given the scope of rules he's broken on Joe's watch — on taxes, lobbying, paying the help, not kicking in hotel walls, gun permit applications, and taking drugs while still somehow getting into the Navy against all rules. 

Just Richardson should be sanctioned, you see.  Never mind about Berry; never mind about Hunter.

It reeks of politics, actually, given that Richardson was actually defended by Sen. Ted Cruz and Don Trump, Jr. on Twitter over the past few days and called on to be allowed to compete.  A lot of Americans thought so, given that pot is legal in many states. 

It was an unfairly strong punishment on the merits, too, given that pot is the opposite of a performance-enhancing drug, not a steroid, and Richardson did not try to conceal or manipulate her transgression as a lot of them do.  She was honest about her error.

Some leniency would have been in order in her case, given that the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee has certainly shown that in other cases — one of which is Berry, who waved her fist at a qualifier a few years ago; got suspended for breaking the rules; and then, instead of an admonition, got an apology from the U.S. Olympic bureaucrats for doing it after she demanded one.

If they, and Biden, can excuse Berry, why can't any of these people call for some compassionate leniency for Richardson?

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.

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