“Louche” is an old-fashioned but useful word popular in the 1920s. It means someone disreputable but nevertheless has a fashionable appeal, like 1920s artsy types who experimented with weird drugs and sex but were beloved among sophisticates. That word came to mind when reading a New York Times essay about Hunter Biden as an “ironic icon” and “antihero.” The Times grudgingly acknowledges that he’s neither but tries to rebrand him as a reformed middle-aged man.
