Vice presidential nominee Joe Biden and his lobbyist son got nailed yesterday for being rich and insider-y and basically exactly like every other well-connected political clan you've ever heard about. "Biden's Son a Well-Paid D.C. Insider" advises the headline of a story detailing how Hunter Biden has personally billed clients $3.8 million for his lobbying services, and how the firm he co-founded with one of his dad's buddies excels in a particularly scummy niche of the lobbying trade that involves coercing a small group of congressmen and staffers to slip earmarks into monstrous spending bills.

That article makes no mention of the jobs and large consulting fees Hunter earned from his dad's biggest contributor (but this one does!) or Sen. Biden's staggeringly unsuccessful effort to avoid exactly these kinds of stories by getting his son out of the lobbying business altogether. Many of the alleged details on that can be found in a lawsuit filed last year against Hunter and his uncle James Biden, Joe's brother.

According to a claim filed by pissed-off business guy Anthony Lotito, "In early January 2006, James Biden called Lotito to inform him that his brother, Senator Joseph P. Biden, was concerned with the impact that Hunter's lobbying would have on his expected campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination." James allegedly said that "his brother had asked him to seek Lotito's assistance in finding employment for Hunter in a non-lobbying capacity."

This supposed ploy worked out just fine at first, assuming that hedge fund work was somehow less of a political liability than lobbying. Lotito partnered with the two Bidens and bought controlling interest of a hedge fund called Paradigm Global Advisors; despite having no hedge fund experience, Hunter was made CEO and given an annual salary of $1.2 million as a way of "fulfilling Senator Biden's wish that Hunter secure employment in a non-lobbying capacity." But soon the bottom fell out. Lotito's lawsuit claims that the Biden boys began "repeatedly citing their political connections and family status" to avoid paying him, and threatened "to use their alleged connections with a former United States senator to retaliate against [Lotito's lawyers] for insisting that his bill be paid."

The Bidens deny all of this and say Lotito was the bad actor in the deal, but whatever happened, it's clear that the hedge fund foray was not a success. Hunter quickly returned to lobbying and ostensibly tried to establish some degree of political cover for his dad's presidential run by playing up his selfless work on the Amtrak Reform Board, a do-nothing patronage gig given to him, of course, by his dad.

Still, the drama continues; the Biden boys were recently slapped with another lawsuit by a different investor who claims they "engaged in an elaborate scheme to defraud" him. It's unclear how exactly all of this might figure into Barack Obama's crusade against business-as-usual in Washington, but here's hoping that some wise journalist covering this week's Democratic convention will take a look at the impact of Washington establishment brats on Obama's message of change. We're looking at you Luke Russert!