Commentary
Watching Vice President Harris flip flop her way in the early stage of her latest campaign for president, I was reminded of a popular 1950s and 1960s Sunday night primetime game show of the 1950s and 60s called “What’s My Line?”
It was Republican vice-presidential candidate J. D. Vance’s reference to Harris as a “Chameleon” that reminded me of the show.
You may recall it. It was hosted by John Charles Daly with regular panelists Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, and Bennett Cerf. The object, of course, was to determine the occupation of the guest. Each week, a celebrity guest was invited to appear, requiring the panelists to be blindfolded.
References of Harris switching her ethnic heritage between Indian and black is a non-starter for me. Who cares? I’ll leave it up to the audiences she faces to accept or not accept her choice of accent as she speaks. I would prefer that Vance and former President Trump both drop the subject.
As a chameleon, if you will, Harris is attempting to campaign looking to the future rather than the past, but I’m concerned with segments of her past being deleted from social media outlets and her decision to avoid one-on-one interviews with the media
Most people are aware that Harris was selected by Joe Biden to be his running mate in 2020 after announcing his plan to pick a black woman. It was widely reported that she was selected with diversity, equity, and inclusion in mind, and when the New York Post headline read: ”America may soon be subjected to the country’s first DEI president: Kamala Harris. Though it was true, the denials flew out of the White House.
The Internet states she is the “first African American” and “first Asian American” vice president. Which is it?
After graduating from law school in 1989, she failed to pass the bar exam on her first try, but did pass in June 1990 and was admitted to the California bar a year after graduation.
After a short stint in the Alameda County district attorney’s office, she was recruited to join the DA’s office in San Francisco, where she was elected AG in 2010 and reelected in 2014. Much has been reported about her rise to her “tutelage” by Speaker of the Assembly Willie Brown, whom she dated.
Though I am not sufficiently familiar with her legal decisions in California to allow me to objectively comment. Suffice it to say, there has been considerable controversy in some of the cases.
She was California’s junior senator from 2017-2021, before defeating Loretta Sanchez in 2016, where it has again been noted that she became the first black woman and first South Asian American to serve in the U. S. Senate.
In 2017, she spoke in opposition to the selection of Betsy DeVos for secretary of education and Jeff Sessions for attorney general, and voted against confirmation of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Later, she called on Sessions to resign over a phony charge of lying regarding his speaking to a Russian ambassador.
The rude prosecutorial nature of her questioning of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein over his role in the firing of James Comey, caused Senators McCain and Burr to interrupt her and request that she be more respectful.
In 2018, I recall her ridiculous comparison of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to the Ku Klux Klan, suggesting the entire agency be abolished, and her over-the-top interrogation of Ron Vitiello, during his confirmation hearing to become the next ICE director.
Citing the tactics of the KKK, Harris asked him if he saw “any parallels” between ICE and the white supremacist organization. “Are you aware of the perception of many about how the power and the discretion at ICE is being used to enforce the laws; do you see any parallels?”
After Harris repeated the charge, Vitiello said he did not, only to have Harris criticizing him for wanting to lead such an organization.
On January 21, 2019, she decided to feed her ego and announce her candidacy for president of the United States, and it was in June that she leveled charges against Biden for speaking fondly of senators who opposed integration efforts in the 1970s, giving her boost in the polls.
But in the second debate in August, after being confronted with her record at attorney general by Biden and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Harris fell in the polls and continued to fall in the following months.
On December 3, 2019 Harris withdrew from the presidential race citing a shortage of funds.
In early March 2020, Democrat House Whip James Clyburn suggested Biden choose a black woman as a running mate, commenting that “African American women needed to be rewarded for their loyalty,” and Biden committed to do so and followed through on August 11, 2020.
I feel no need to revisit her record as vice president. I’m sure the Trump-Vance team, with the help of the RNC, will remind you.
I would like someone to explain to me how Harris, in an NBC News poll just one year ago, was rated the lowest of any vice president in poll history, with a 33 percent “positive” view among registered voters.
What is more difficult to understand is how the Harris vs Trump race can be claimed to be squeaky close when the NBC News poll revealed that 49 percent of registered voters had a “negative” view of her and 39 percent a “very negative” view.
The way I see it, we’re led to believe that candidate failure breeds an energized voter in Democrat land.
May God continue to bless the United States of America.
