Commentary
Since the close of the DNC convention, my stack of stuff on Harris and Walz has grown, replete with embarrassing quotes that question her qualifications for president.
As I began refreshing my memory as to why I saved various documents, the job became overwhelming, causing me to rethink my intention of providing you with a clear picture of Harris, and why she would be bad for our country.
It was then that I learned that she would be sitting for an interview with CNN. Not one to procrastinate, but it provided me with a legitimate reason to delay this piece, and comment on it.
Before the first question was asked, I said to my wife, “She looks small … and look how Walz dominates, the staging is terrible.”
I made some notes, but the staging bothered me. You see, when I was working in communications and public relations, I was involved in a number of “shoots” as we referred to them. Properly positioning the boss for taping was just as important as making sure he was comfortable and prepared to deliver his message.
As an aside, I have often thought how stiff presidents look sitting behind the cleared Resolute Desk in the Oval Office. Personally, I would have the president casually sit with one cheek on the corner of the desk. Trump could do this.
Reviewing my e-mails before beginning my blog, I was blown away by Ben Domenech’s piece on the interview.
“What struck me from the very start was how bad the shot looked,” he wrote, drifting off into the “bad lighting, bad makeup, messy hair, the color choice of gray, and Walz’s collar askew,” before noting “a camera angle making Kamala look small.”
He went on to criticize a “water cup center shot, a crowded background that makes it look like things are growing out of their heads, and poor fitting suits.”
Finally, “Dana looking like the tallest person in the frame.”
“This wouldn’t be a big deal if this was just one of a dozen interviews,” he wrote, “but they invested way more importance to this one conversation, so the optics and tone took on more political weight.”
The Interview
Harris’s response to Bash’s question about her changing her mind on fracking was, “Well, let’s be clear. My values have not changed.” That does not explain what went into her changing her position on a number of issues. Commentator Hugh Hewitt claims that when she says, “let me be clear,” which she does often, “she’s lying.”
Integrity, honesty, loyalty, responsibility, humility and empathy are among normal values to which people adhere. Harris could have been honest and conceded it was for political reasons.
If viewers expected to learn more about the policies of Harris-Walz, they didn’t.
The Spectator wrote “The Kamala interview was a bust – for everyone involved, noting that “the Harris-Walz CNN interview offered voters no clarity.”
When Bash mentioned the Harris-Walz theme, “We’re not going back,” suggesting things were less expensive when Trump was president, Harris went into a long reason for increases, blaming Trump for his handling of the Covid crisis.
Harris’s responses to Bash’s questions on “why you haven’t done things in your three and a half years,” and “so, you maintain Bidenomics is a success,” were equally elusive.
Bidenomics
While contemplating this piece on how Vice President Harris might expect to attract Independent and Republican voters, based on the promises she made in her DNC acceptance speech and her CNN interview, she failed.
The well-produced TV commercials paid for by Trump, in which she is captured singing the praises of BIdenomics. “It’s working,” she says with a huge smile on her face.
Of course, the Trump team is going to milk the failures of Bidenomics, making it known that it was Harris who cast the deciding vote in the Senate on the big spending bills that put Bidenomics on the ropes.
There’s no mention of Bidenomics in Harris’s New Way Forward agenda, in which she has created her “Opportunity Economy,” where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed. With some sort of cockamamie help from taxpayers, no doubt.
When I read CNN’s assessment of how the Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that it was necessary to revise that there were 818,000 fewer jobs than it initially thought over the past year, I had to agree with the network that it would be “a problem for Kamala Harris.”
The downward revision on jobs, the largest downward revision since 2009, will take some “splainin,” for Harris, who will have to have it explained to her.
Bash didn’t press her on this.
Looking back to when Harris was interviewed by Bash in 2021, Harris confirmed that she was the last person in the room before Biden made the decision to withdraw troops and close Bagram Air Base.
“Afghanistan, you were the last person in the room?” Bash asked. “Yes,” Harris responded, adding, “This is a president who has an extraordinary amount of courage.”
No. If anything, Biden should have summoned the courage to recognize that his foreign policy record has been abysmal, and it was time to listen to the advice of his generals.
The third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that took the lives of 13 Americans in President Biden’s disastrous withdrawal was back in the news last week as relatives of the 13 killed asked former President Trump to participate in the laying of a wreath at Arlington.
May God continue to bless the United States of America
