February 18, 2019

Kamala Harris is terribly awkward when asked about Jussie Smollett.



She acts as though she doesn't remember what she tweeted, then, when reminded that she called it "an attempted modern-day lynching," she looks back (at 0:27) as if to seek help from somebody (perhaps that grim, frowning woman behind her), then turns forward again, says "sorry" and giggles. She giggled in response to the idea of lynching!

Then she partly composes herself, lifts her eyebrows halfway up her forehead and says "ummm, uh, uh, okay" and otherwise stalls for 10 seconds before coming out with "The facts are still unfolding," which struck me as ridiculous considering that she didn't wait for facts to unfold before declaring it "an attempted modern-day lynching," so she's making it seem as though she'll jump to a conclusion when she likes where she can go and will take refuge in restraint when she doesn't like it.

She should at least withdraw her original statement or try to justify it as something that expressed her genuine feeling of shock at the idea of a hateful attack.

She adds "I'm very concerned and obviously..." and then this edit of the video ends. I think, based on this NYT report — "Kamala Harris Faces Questions About ‘Democratic Socialist’ Label and Jussie Smollett in N.H. Debut" — that the next thing she said was that there should be an investigation. Why wasn't that obvious back when she was tweeting "modern-day lynching"?

More from the Times article:
Senator Kamala Harris visited New Hampshire on Monday for the first time in her life, and quickly experienced the realities of being a presidential candidate.... New Hampshire has a long history of favoring New England candidates. Despite Mr. Sanders’s popularity here — he won 60 percent of the vote in the 2016 primary — Ms. Harris distanced herself from him at an earlier event in Concord. Asked if she would have to tack to the left like Mr. Sanders to do well in New Hampshire, she drew a line in the sand.

“The people of New Hampshire will tell me what’s required to compete in New Hampshire, but I will tell you I am not a democratic socialist,” she said....

The audience... responded heartily to her veiled references to President Trump, whom she did not name. They rose to their feet and cheered when she denounced “his vanity project,” the wall on the southern border with Mexico....

96 comments:

Charlie Currie said...

She's an airhead communist...socialism is beneath her, democrat or otherwise.

Charlie Currie said...

And, an evil airhead, at that.

Karen of Texas said...

If I hear "vanity project" one more time...

Awkward or not, uninformed, misinformed, whatever - her deficiencies will be air brushed away by the mainstream media if she is the chosen one.

Tank said...

She did not anticipate that someone might ask about this? She had no inkling of an answer ready.

Sad.

R C Belaire said...

I'm in Trump's corner, and think Harris is, as said above, an "airhead." That said, a day seldom goes by that Trump says or does something cringe-worthy. I'd vote for him again, though.

JackWayne said...

Can't think on her feet. Gonna be trouble for her in the debates if she gets to Trump. She will definitely have the questions given to her ahead of time in the Democrat debates.

Tank said...

Actually she looked like “help I’m drowning!”

Lucid-Ideas said...

Hahahahahahahaha so much for those softball questions!

That's what spending a day picking out dresses with CNN field reporters gets ya! Off guard...

Kamala and her technicolor dreamcoat that made her look like a rubik's cube....there's no solving the tough ones Kamala!!

Drago said...

LLR's hardest hit.

Josephbleau said...

The problem with having the MSM perform as your press agent is that you never get used to answering questions seriously, because if you don’t there are no consequences. This is a real problem for Democrats. It makes them look stupid.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Kamala's internal dialogue...

"Damn....my soc media team didn't brief me on this one. Then again they didn't brief me when they created the damn tweet either. (Looks at IT team nervously....) Why oh why can't i handle mynown Twitter account like Trump does....could've added 'allegedly'...just like i 'allegedly' sucked dick to get this far. Damn you Trump!"

BamaBadgOR said...

Maybe Harris didn't write the tweet. Maybe the woman behind her did or that woman's staff did. Harris may not even have been aware of the tweet.

Original Mike said...

"Can't think on her feet."

That was my impression during the Kavanaugh hearings too. When Kavanaugh didn't give her the answer she wanted she floundered. She couldn't think on her feet nor, in that case, was she prepared for a perfectly foreseeable event.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Anyone familiar with this "anti-lynching" legislation that just made it through the house? Apparently put together specifically BECAUSE of this incident? Wasn't Harris the sponsor?

Kamala's a good girl and a good Dem...she never lets a crisis go to waste! Not even when their trope is mailing crushed aspirin to look like anthrax in the mail for sweet felony terrorism charges!

It's ok Kamala. It's all trump's fault!

Jokah Macpherson said...

How many of the hasty tweets condemning the incident were actually made the name on the account? I get the impression a lot of these politicians have staff to do their tweeting for them. Which seems stupid to me because you wind up in situations like this where you have to defend or explain stuff 'you' said. And how hard can it really be to type out a couple of unobjectionable sentences a day? @realdonaldtrump does his own tweeting and he was the guy that actually won.

William said...

This hoax as a hoax has far more truth and significance than a real crime would. If there were truly two Trump supporters with an obsessive hatred of a gay supporting actor in a second rung tv show, this would be indicative of those two Trump supporters mental health but not of Trump supporters in general.. I just don't think that Trump's base is all that crazy. ...., What is crazy is the instant and fervent belief that this story inspired among Trump haters. There isn't a one of them who expressed an reservation about the story, and this a week after the Covington debacle......... Kamala Harris knocked Trump for expressing disbelief in the pronouncement of his intelligence chief. Can I knock Kamala Harris for expressing belief in the accusation made by Smollett. I have to say that Harris and the other celebs are far more gullible than Trump. What is it about Smollett than made him so trustworthy and sympathetic when presenting such an unlikely story?

Mike Sigman said...

Kamala Harris is someone who is known to have screwed her way to the top and taken advantage of "Affirmative Action" (the economy tickets to academia). Why is anyone surprised at anything this mental lightweight, sexual heavyweight has to say? If you vote for this type of person, you're a living example of why "one person, one vote" is silly. The Founding Fathers at least set the restrictions common for their times on someone able to vote: You had to be smart enough and have a stake in the game in order to play".

stevew said...

Will she learn to do as Althouse, and all responsible people, does when these situations present themselves: pause, reflect, and take some time to gather the facts? If she does she will differentiate herself from the others running for the nomination, and win.

Rob said...

Compare Harris with Nancy Pelosi, who over the weekend quietly deleted her tweet from the day the supposed attack on Smollett was reported. Back then, Speaker Pelosi tweeted, "The racist, homophobic attack on @JussieSmollett is an affront to our humanity. No one should be attacked for who they are or whom they love. I pray that Jussie has a speedy recovery & that justice is served. May we all commit to ending this hate once & for all."

I'm taken aback that Speaker Pelosi considered it an affront.

Lucid-Ideas said...

Glenn Reynolds at PJ media says it all the time, "all they had to do was not be crazy, and they can't even do that."

Dems, don't stop. Please. You're on a roll. Every day these shoe-on-head-retarded happenings unfold and every day you provide I-just-made-a-doody-in-my-pants responses is worth an easy 20-30,000 redpillings for 2020.

Go for the extra credit. Reach for the brass ring.

n.n said...

Democrats are taking affirmative action to deny civil rights, human rights, and discourage emigration reform in nations that desperately need to address a warming, confrontational climate and tend their garden.

tim in vermont said...

She’s pretty when she’s awkward.

Quaestor said...

"...but I will tell you I am not a democratic socialist,” she said....

Lenin said something similar in 1917.

Quaestor said...

I'm taken aback that Speaker Pelosi considered it an affront.

Front... Back... Isn't that what it's all about?

rcocean said...

Because of immigration she's a Senator-for-Life in the State that gave us Reagan.
That's why she's so Jolly. As long as she sings from the Liberal playbook, it doesn't matter what she says. It's odd looking at this "black woman" talking about Smollett and realizing she married to a Jewish guy, and was raised by her Hindu mother in Montreal. The closest she's ever come to real blackness is humping Willie Brown.

Maillard Reactionary said...

Another lefty fraud from the Dim party of slavery and we know better than you.

How can any sentient person be surprised at this point?

tim in vermont said...

Nobody really hates Americans like a Montrealer. Not all of them, of course, but quite a few.

JackWayne said...

Even her own father thinks she’s a lightweight

Wayne said...

@Jack Wayne “Can’t think on her feet.”
She’s better on her knees.

Gk1 said...

It's always fun to see these glass jaw liberals get blind sided every once in a while when they lose friendly air cover from the MSM. It doesn't happen a lot but it does happen. Liberals will never EVER forgive Bernard Shaw for asking Dukakis during a debate whether he would still be anti-death penalty if someone strangled and raped his wife. This is standard fare for any republican running for president. For democrat's its pure death, they don't know what to do with tough questions, they look just like Kamala, looking like a dazed deer in the headlights and looking for help.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

Harris is not going to make it. Warren or Klobuchar are much stronger candidates.

Darrell said...

Did Kamala conspire with Jussie to stage an OP to jumpstart her campaign? Is that why he added the noose?

walter said...

"Senator Kamala Harris visited New Hampshire on Monday for the first time in her life, and quickly experienced the realities of being a presidential candidate"
Willie Brown grins..and takes his clothes out of suitcase and hangs in closet.
Inga,
Klobuchar might survive till she throws a stapler at an early debate.

walter said...

On what issue9s) does Harris separate from "Democratic Socialists"?

Lucid-Ideas said...

@Inga

Warren is the stronger candidate, almost superhuman especially when she breaks her silence and says the magic words 'Cherokee chief, EE NAY CHUCK!'

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

KKKamala = pure ugh. pure 100% ugh.

gspencer said...

"but I will tell you I am not a democratic socialist,” Horizontal Harris said,

And everyone giggled at the Democrat's obvious lie.

madAsHell said...

Damn....my soc media team didn't brief me on this one.

That's what I saw as well. She was blaming someone else. I bet frumpy, frown woman is looking for a new job.

tim in vermont said...

This is like a IRL game of Fortnight. If you are going to be exposed to fire quickly, you damned well better be very good at the game.

Charlie said...

She's toast. Can't improvise.

Bill, Republic of Texas said...

Harris is not going to make it. Warren or Klobuchar are much stronger candidates.

This is white supremacy. The white woman supports the other white women. Warren is an unforgivable affirmative action fraud and Klobuchar is a hate filled rage-aholic. But the black woman seems a little hesitant in answering one question and "she's not going to make it.'

Ralph L said...

One of our local news shows had a few seconds about the hoax tonight. They left out the racial and MAGA accusations but mentioned the homophobia.

walter said...

We need a sound-off between Harris' AKA "Skee Wee" vs Warren's Cherokee War Cry

tim in vermont said...

Blogger walter said...
On what issue9s) does Harris separate from "Democratic Socialists"


There is the issue of letterhead.

Tank said...

As a former prosecutor, you would think that thinking on her feet would be a skill that she had mastered.

rightguy said...

Harris is obviously not even remotely up to being the actual POTUS. A total lightweight. Not that this will hurt her with the dems.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Writing from NH, but I no longer go to first-primary events. I get frustrated because they are now usually packed with the sympathetic, plus out-of-state supporters trying to astroturf. You can tell if you look around the crowd. Yet real questions still do get through, and even a percentage of our liberals want real answers. I recognised on site that she was at Gibson's Bookstore in Concord, a liberal bastion that I wrote about over a year ago. https://assistantvillageidiot.blogspot.com/2017/02/bookstore.html That's as easy as territory for Democrats gets in NH. Prediction: She's not going anywhere above Laconia except for photo ops. No questions please. The more liberal they are, the more you are going to see of them in Concord, the Upper Valley, and the Seacoast. They all have to go to Manchester and Nashua, but those will be highly managed.

Sebastian said...

I wish Fox wouldn't go after Harris. Trump could crush her more easily than Klobuchar. Even her identity-political bona fides are suspect.

First, she abetted the Smollett smear, then she wasn't nimble enough to disentangle herself. She should stick to clothes shopping with her MSM groupies.

rhhardin said...

A narrative is a truth. If it falls apart it's not fair to accuse the people who liked the narrative. It's where they lived.

rhhardin said...

The new reality is offensive to soap opera women. They're not going to click on it.

A politician has to keep the soap opera women happy. So the narrative has to be resumed without interruption by some harsh fact. Harris knows that.

Privately she'd be fine with it; but the narrative home has to be protected.

Anonymous said...

Tank said...
As a former prosecutor, you would think that thinking on her feet would be a skill that she had mastered.


maybe she tried cases in her first ADA job, but when she came to SF, she ran the civil code division, meaning she assigned and supervised lawyers who themselves tried few cases.

and the SF DA tries no cases, nor does the State AG

Anonymous said...

Harris owes it to her fellow Indian Americans to play the BLACK card hard. Lest somebody associate her with India

Even Joe molestem Biden will tell you that Indians are smarter than this.

chickelit said...

How quaint that some of you think it matters what NH thinks of Kamala Harris. She comes from the most populous State in the Union which will deliver the most (D) votes for a (D) President from here on out. I suppose you all still believe in the Electoral College. It will be best not to get on her bad side because once CA Dems have their way with the US electoral map, little states just won't matter anymore.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Booker T. Spartacus, Kamala Wakanda, and The Reprobate Sharpton
gotta tip-toe away from radioactive Jussie Fruit.

FullMoon said...

How in the world can a politician not be ready with an answer to that question? Was she not aware of her tweet, or not aware of current events?

Pretty stupid.

chickelit said...

It will be interesting to see what excuses they will give when Harris flops in Flyover America. Reasons like racism and sexism will not cover for her manipulative witch with zero warmth persona.

JayDee77 said...

Where once I was genuinely frightened of her, this one incident lays that to rest. She can't think on her feet. Trump will devour her.

chickelit said...

Inga...Allie Oop said...
Harris is not going to make it. Warren or Klobuchar are much stronger candidates.

I agree. California Dems have a distinct disadvantage nationwide because the state politics are so insular and tame. There is never a trial by fire for any Dem candidate. Winners are chosen and the voters follow. Republican opponents might have toughened her up somewhat but they were made extinct out here.

chickelit said...

The "Titus archipelago" will only get her so far based on looks alone.

hawkeyedjb said...

"not a democratic socialist." One of those moments when both her detractors and her supporters assume she's lying.

glenn said...

Think she was befuddled here ask her how she got her first board appointment.. None of the chicks going in the tank for her will. They started out the same way.

The Godfather said...

Geez! That was such an easy question to deal with:

The tweet you referred to expressed my reaction to the horrendous racist and homophobic attack Mr. Smollett described. I certainly did not express any opinion about the facts of the case or whether his description was accurate.

Lovely weather here in New Hampshire isn't it?

Big Mike said...

Not quite ready for the big time, is she?

Danno said...

Either Kamala doesn't author her own tweets or she is totally clueless.

DavidUW said...

Like any California politician of relatively recent vintage, she never had to work hard (except for Willie Brown's uh, lift), and certainly never had to debate an actual policy point.

I saw this 20+ years ago at Berkeley. When confronted with a counter argument against whatever lefty trope of the day, the students simply screamed like 2 year olds.

Now they're "grown up" politicians.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

Presidential! ...haha, just kidding. She's a dangerous dingbat. Don't worry though, the democrat party will hustle her overseas where she can make a speech in front of some sympathetic foreigners who hate America too, then the democrat party media will gush over this speech in which she trashes her country before an audience of our enemies, and declare that it proves Kammie has the foreign policy chops to be president. Joe Biden was just doing the same thing with sweathog Merkel in Nazi Germany where the Easties and the Democrats are besties.

Michael Fitzgerald said...

stevew@8:04PM ...haha, that was cruel, and neutral.

Mary Beth said...

Apparently put together specifically BECAUSE of this incident? Wasn't Harris the sponsor?

She was, and it's more likely to be the other way around - that the letter and "attack" were done because of the bill. Not just because of it, probably. Job security and attention for Smollett could have been big motivators too.

Earnest Prole said...

Lynching sure ain't what it used to be.

mccullough said...

The Senators all jumped on the Smollet bandwagon and piled on Gov. Coonman.

Coonman just ignores them and Smollet made them look dumb.

These are the Best and the Brightest.

Hillary is starting to look viable

Johno said...

I am an old time democrat. Gay and live in DC. I have had lots of racist and homophobic stuff tossed my way. It is excused because people want to get along. They are worse then the idiots that do it. Low expectations or something.

Lewis Wetzel said...

I occasionally hear in the MSM that Biden is the candidate of middle America.
I don't see it. Not at all.
Delaware is not middle America. Pennsylvania may seem to coast-based reporters to be middle America, but it isn't. Biden is always pushing the racial grievance and sex grievance buttons. If asked, I am sure that he will say that women can have a penis and father children.
Plus, he is dumb as a box of rocks and has terrible political instincts. He was against the first Gulf War and for the second gulf War. He has the reputation of being a foreign policy wonk, but all of his ideas about foreign policy have been proven wrong by history.
Biden is the candidate the MSM thinks represents working and middle class values. He talks about being raised working class but he went to a prep school. He inflates his resume'. He has made his living from politics since 1972.
I think that the MSM will be saddened by Biden's lack of appeal to the people the MSM thinks that he will appeal to.

Johno said...

Ar e we expected to think these poeple who want to be president fell for that guy’s story but deal congress and other nations by what they want to be true?

DeepRunner said...

This is likely the first Kamala Harris "Roger Mudd Moment" (think back to when Chappaquiddick- Ted Kennedy was asked why he wanted to be President, when he was challenging Carter for the nomination in the run-up to the 1980 election.[btw, Chappaquiddick was not a hoax.]). There may and likely will be more.

Andrew Scriveley said...

Poontronage.
.
'Nuff said.

Yancey Ward said...

She is going to have to think on her feet far better than that brief clip. To watch that clip should be mortifying for any Harris supporter. I mean, seriously, she should have been prepared for exactly that question- this is the Democratic primary, and there are going to be those in the media who support some other Democrat and won't feel obligated to treat other ones with baby mittens.

On the tweet itself, though- I am about 100% certain that she didn't write the tweet- her staff did. She might well not even have seen it.

Trumpit said...

Clarence Thomas pulled that "high-tech lynching" line in his infamous speech:
And from my standpoint as a black American, as far as I'm concerned, it is a high-tech lynching for uppity blacks who in any way deign to think for themselves, to do for themselves, to have different ideas, and it is a message that unless you kowtow to an old order, this is what will happen to you. You will be lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U.S. -- U.S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree.

Of course, it was a sham pleading because Anita Hill was telling the truth. We all are paying the price for putting such a lowbrow on the Supreme Ct., and in the Office of the U.S. President in 2016.

PB said...

It's been suggested that Harris may have "coordinated" with Jessie Smollett. He's campaigned for her.

Paul Sand said...

I'm pretty sure the grim frowny woman behind the senator is Congresswoman Annie Kuster from NH's second Congressional district.

Kevin said...

Pennsylvania may seem to coast-based reporters to be middle America

It’s as far into middle America as they want to go. They see the Amish, don’t recognize their ways, and assume it only gets stranger from there.

If they must travel farther they prefer to attach themselves to the Presidential guide and his security detail.

Kevin said...

There could be a remake of Escape from New York where Snake Plisken rents a van to get reporters home from Kansas City after their plane must land due to mechanical trouble.

whitney said...

Can't wait to see her debate Trump. That should be highly amusing. Though, except for entertainment value, pointless. No one's changing their mind about anything at this point

Tina Trent said...

Why is this surprising? The annual hate crime reports published by the CBI until recently featured garish images of lynchings and crosses burning. Such imagery still predominates in the material produced by the movement for schoolchildren, for crimes that are, if not hoaxes, almost all minor name calling.

Yes. Government reports. Government-distributed curricula.

The hate crimes movement is about finding any damn thing that can be pinned on white heterosexual people, pinning blame for it across all white heterosexual people, and screaming "Klansman" while doing it.

It is, equally, about denying the realities of the last sixty years of real crime and also all crime before that not committed by a klansman. It is an official movement hellbent on destroying equality in our justice system through denial of human suffering, and you're surprised?

I was in the room at the beginning of this movement due to my coalition-based job requirements. On the committees, at the conferences. I walked away and started opposing these laws because I learned what the advocates intended in their own words, and I knew what they were doing to manipulate enforcement, and it was obvious to me where it would lead and how it would destroy equality, in investigations and prosecutions.

I won that fight in Georgia but was labeled an anti-semite and, specifically, an "enemy of the ADL," by the ADL. I started getting mail from law enforcement around the country who were uniformly afraid to speak out but were concerned, as I was, about the politicized trainings and the astonishing lies built into the statistics gathering, things completely like anything else in law enforcement. For my lobbying against these laws, I was purged from my academic program but permitted to pursue my teaching credits in another department. I was purged from several feminist groups - - ironically for pointing out in testimony that women -- quietly -- wouldn't be counted as victims of gender bias hate because there were too many such crimes, so gender would only apply to transvestities and transgenders. Kim Gandy coordinated the official lies to their members about women victims for the NOW.

What I learned about the actions of DAs in California of course dwarfed the behavior of DAs in other states. One DA from Los Angeles, Carla Arranaga, called me up to tell me how pleased I should be that she had prosecuted eight or nine (I'd need to see my notes) "gender bias crimes against women." This was in response to my querying her and other DAs nationally about excluding serial killers who tortured, raped and murdered one random woman after another from their hate crime stats.

The California victims Arranaga was referencing were all transvestitites. No "biological" woman was counted as a hate crime victim in California that year, not for having pejoratives carved into their dying bodies, not for literally being lynched (I used to keep records of women strung from trees in cases not counted as hate).

You know who finessed the secret exclusion of tortured, raped and murdered victims of prolific serial killers from being "counted" as victims of gender bias hate?

Elena Kagan, per a request from Eric Holder and Bill Clinton.

You should know these things. I'm sorry to be rude, but there is no excuse for any law professor not knowing how these laws are being enforced, in reality.

Of course most don't, or rather, refuse to know and are afraid to ask. Look at what asking questions did to me. But I don't think official denial and official suppression of the truth is a good enough excuse for ignorance on the part of any law enforcement manager or any academic. The record of grotesque disparate application of these laws in California and everywhere else is as bright as kleig lights.

You have to decide to not see it. Mass decision to decide to not see is the road to fascism, and we're definitely well down that road.



MadisonMan said...

I'm no fan of Harris. That looked really bad.

MayBee said...

How do you convince conservatives and Republicans to vote for you after you've pretty much signed on to the idea that they are lynchers of black people and gay men?

MayBee said...

I could be wrong, but it seems to me Trump is pretty good at sticking with childish criticisms of opposing politicians, not citizens.

MayBee said...

Oh- when Trump criticized the Gold Star Mother, Mrs. Khan. That was at a citizen. For that he was labeled a bigot, and that sticks to him. So how do we label Booker and Harris?

MayBee said...

Harris wasn't ready for this question because she spent the weekend trying on sequin jackets and giggling with her campaign reporters.

Lovernios said...

""...but I will tell you I am not a democratic socialist,” she said....

Lenin said something similar in 1917."


Right. She's a totalitarian socialist. Like all the rest.

Rick said...

so she's making it seem as though she'll jump to a conclusion when she likes where she can go and will take refuge in restraint when she doesn't like it.

While true why would this matter? What percentage of Dem primary voters would reduce the likelihood of voting for her on this basis? .001%? What percentage would increase that same likelihood? 50%? 75%?

Why did all the candidates take this approach on Smollett and also sign onto the "Green New Deal" even though it proves them fantasists? Because they understand this dynamic. Reality has no influence when the goal is appealing to idiots.

Anthony said...

D-U-M dum. Like most people in government and nearly all politicians.

furious_a said...

Kamala Harris is what comes of breaking the Glass Ceiling the old-fashioned way.

furious_a said...

P.S. Rick Perry was laughed out of a presidential primary for just such a loss-of-words. Just sayin’.

Mountain Maven said...

Affirmative Action candidates will do that.

Mountain Maven said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Assistant Village Idiot said...

@ Trumpit - some people find that a little coffee helps them focus and stay on topic.