Writes Molly Jong-Fast in a Vanity Fair piece with a long title: "KAMALA HARRIS, A VERY TURBULENT YEAR IN AMERICA, AND THE CHALLENGE OF BEING FIRST/In an interview with Vanity Fair, the vice president discusses protecting abortion rights post-Roe and tackling immigration, along with how, as a woman of several firsts—from DA to AG to VP—she hopes to 'create a path and widen the path for others.'"
It sounds as though, in the middle of the interview, she's ransacking her own mental archive in search of any substance to use in this big Vanity Fair piece she's supposed to write.
And here is the most powerful woman—quite literally one heartbeat away from the presidency....
Oh! The despair in those words! Here you are, given special access, and you don't just trot out the old cliché — "one heartbeat away from the presidency" — you pad it with the ludicrous amplifier "quite literally." I am quite literally rolling on the floor laughing my ass off.
At this point, I am sure Jong-Fast found absolutely nothing of interest in this interview — nothing, that is, that she wanted to use.
[I]t occurs to me during our interview that the vice president of the United States is actually trying to make me feel comfortable.
Jong-Fast talks about herself, and I'm willing to believe it's because her subjective feelings are more interesting than anything Kamala Harris said.
Perhaps it’s a function of the world we all inhabit, but the female vice president is way friendlier and more accommodating than a man in her position would ever be.
Perhaps! We're not told of anything friendly and accommodating Harris said or did, but why not aim vague attacks at people who are not present — "a man in her position" — and, earlier — "the media, and Americans more generally"?
There is an anxiety in her office—the staff is obsessive about getting every last detail right.
Oh? Could that be because she is not as friendly and accommodating to her staff as "a man in her position" might be? That's what I've heard.
No one says it to me explicitly, but you can sense in the carefulness and precision of every word and gesture that the success of the vice president is about more than just her.
Jong-Fast is lost in her own thoughts. I have to presume Harris gave her nothing to write about.
Harris is saddled with the burden of being first. Anything she does will attract more scrutiny, anything she doesn’t do will attract more scorn. There is a tension that permeates the world surrounding her. Being first is never comfortable.
This is so ludicrously padded! Harris is 2 years into the vice presidency. Why are we musing vaguely about all the "firsts" now? Or should I credit Jong-Fast with subtly conveying the sense that Harris is "trying to make [her]
feel comfortable" and failing. But that can't be Harris's fault. "Being first is never comfortable." And "tension...
permeates the world surrounding her." Huh?!
And yet, Harris seems relaxed as we get chatting, starting off with some small talk about wedding photography, of all things, as well as feminism, which led me to mention that my mom is the writer Erica Jong. “That’s your mom?” she said. “Nobody tells me anything around here!”...
Oh, my. Harris is woefully under-informed and even that is to be blamed on faceless others. You would think a seasoned politician would be skilled at seeming to already know the things she should already know. Where's the finesse?! She blames the staff.
A bit of substance: Jong-Fast asked Harris about her reaction to the news of the overruling of Roe v. Wade. Harris referenced a speech she gave in early May, just after the leaking of the draft of the Dobbs decision:
“I just gave a pretty spontaneous speech, saying, ‘How dare they?’” Harris said. “In terms of just an expression of the outrage I think we all felt.”
That's such a weak way to put it — "just... pretty... In terms of just... I think we all felt."
Jong-Fast displays her dissatisfaction:
But I wanted to know if she saw the fall of Roe coming. I expected that after the Supreme Court failed to act on SB8 (the bill that banned abortion after about six weeks in the state of Texas) that she might have assumed Roe would be overturned.
“You brace for any major catastrophe. I think it’s human nature that we retained some element of hope that this couldn’t happen because it would be so awful if it did. That’s how I think about this issue, that it couldn’t happen because I’m acutely aware of how many people will be hurt in a significant way if it did. That was kind of just mentally and emotionally where I was, which is eyes open that it could happen, but also believing this can’t happen. Then, of course, when the leaked decision came down, that was it.”
Again, I'm struck by the verbal weakness: "kind of just mentally and emotionally where I was." She sounds resigned and unable to prepare or fight in any way.
But Jong-Fast presents her as scrambling to begin to fight:
The former prosecutor pulled opinions related to Roe and started strategizing. “In that opinion, shocking but not shocking, that Justice Clarence Thomas said the quiet part out loud—that marriage, that right to contraception was very much at risk.” (Thomas’s concurring opinion also raised concerns the court could target sodomy laws.) Since Harris had experience as a state AG, where she helped beat back Califorina’s 2008 proposed same-sex marriage ban Propostion [sic] 8, she was quick to turn to the states, telling me how governors had been partners with the Biden administration when it came to reproductive health, such as Massachusetts’s Charlie Baker and Wisconsin’s Tony Evers, who’s “going to veto what he has to, he’s going to do it right.”...
So it's a non-fight, just an idea that it's left to the states — an incomplete solution that only works in states with Democratic governors. Leaving it to the states is pretty conservative and low-energy, but Jong-Fast tries to spice it up and make it seem active: "she was quick to turn to the states." But to be quick to leave the work to someone else is to have an instinct for inaction.
Since the court was sending abortion rights to the states, she said, “we need to get out of DC and go and support and be with leaders in the states. I convened state legislators in red states and blue states to one, remind them they weren’t out here fighting alone, but to also see what I could do, to bring my platform and whatever cameras and voice I could bring, to uplift and highlight the incredible work that they’re doing at a state level.”...
What about federal legislation? I wouldn't say "the court was sending abortion rights to the states." Why is she conceding that? Get a federal statutory right done while you can! But no, she's talking about herself as if she's a movie star, bringing "cameras and voice" "to uplift and highlight" the work that other people are doing.
Jong-Fast tries to get something out of Harris on immigration. Harris says what she does is: "Bringing together CEOs and business leaders to say, hey, you guys have resources and skill and expertise in certain areas, and coupling that with the bandwidth and the scope of what we can do as government, can be very powerful to have a very focused ability to look at the solutions to a problem."
But, it's Congress's fault: “CEOs will tell you this every day of the week, they need immigration... The problem here is that we don’t have a Congress that is willing to actually approach this in a reasonable way.... Congress has to act.”
Harris claims to have a strong relationship with President Biden: "We just like each other a lot. We just like each other. It’s really nice. It’s really nice. I feel very fortunate to have this relationship."
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83 comments:
"[I]t occurs to me during our interview that the vice president of the United States is actually trying to make me feel comfortable." She must run with a nice class of people. Anyone who outranks her, thinks she's furniture.
I do find it a little bewildering. Surely if anyone has to be good with people, it would be politicians?
On this day of Festivus, Kamala Harris is truly “a show about nothing”…
God help us if she becomes an accidental president.
Can ANYONE (Any One, at all?) point to ANYTHING (Any Thing at all?) that Kamela has EVER done?
EVER?
Harris is a terrible example for women because her most recent firsts appear foisted. She quite literally was an affirmative action pick for VP. If she is chosen as the POTUS candidate tomorrow it will be because she will have been chosen by a secretive few. Her polling numbers quite literally reflect this.
Oh my God, thank you for taking the time to read through and comment on this twaddle. I could only get through about half of your comments to her painful exercise, but you were nailing it every step of the way.
If you're going to search out a powerful woman to interview, sure, the Veep is the most powerful in many ways because of her position. But the person holding this position is among the least impressive humans we have in our public life. There is nothing she's done as Veep. She's still the face of our border situation and yeah...she has no idea what's going on there.
And speaking of women in positions, I love the line "...she hopes to create a path and widen the path for others." Let's remember that her path was created by her position in front of Willie Brown. I don't like to go there typically, but as it turns out, there's no other reason for her ascent in CA politics. She's the most vacuous politico I've seen since...well, Corey Booker- her contemporary. (The Dems are loaded with vacuousness these days, but it doesn't seem to keep them from getting reelected.)
Anyway, as Molly is looking for how the media has treated women of power over the years, perhaps she can go a few years back and look at Jeane Kirkpatrick, or Condoleezza Rice and how they were treated by the national press. Looking at the hand-held Kamala Harris, who at this very moment is getting the Royal Makeover by all of the national press, as the person to represent the hard path women of power have to take, is laughable. If you thought Joe Biden was the Emperor with no clothes, wait until we get a dose of President Kamala Harris. It could set women (and the country) back decades.
The word is literally used way too much.
Oh, Kamala is WAY MORE accommodating.
Two empty-headed people talking? Is this the takeaway?
A zipless fuck of an article. Vanity Fair is aptly named. That's not to say ambitious women in male dominated arenas don't face challenges, Harris is just a horrible example.
My daughter is a director of a biotech startup and her boss is a marginally competent short chubby dweeb of a man whom she struggles with. I named him Elmer Fudd and she does her best Bugs Bunny act to try and flatter him, but that's not good enough.
What it is caused by is weak males see women as weaker targets of their attempts to intimidate and dominate. This is a challenge because women are very conscientious. Another issue is if they stand up for themselves, they get labeled a bitch.
I was relating this story to my high powered doctor BFF and how I told my daughter a couple stories about how the doc handled Elmer Fudds. She said that a strong ambitious smart woman must never underestimate the power of being underestimated. Maybe Kamala never got that memo.
Literally is right up there with garner.
Vanity Fair - should be: Valley Girl gets a job...like writing and stuff. Like Kamala is like literally totally awesome. Come on, man.
Most excellent deconstruction - thank you, Althouse.
Does anyone, except perhaps members of her family, really believe that Harris has the skills, experience and competence to be President? Asking for a friend.
That's a pretty good fisking, Professor. But then you're aiming at an easy target: one of the two stupidest people ever elected nationally. (The other is her boss.)
Woman who inherited wealth and fame bitching about nothing. What’s new?
Feminism was the first fake victim identity politics scam. Rich women who own splendid condos in Manhattan are eligible for victim status, and don’t have the sense to cease the spoiled brat whining.
The stereotype of women proven true again. Women bitch about everything and nothing.
“ Get a federal statutory right done while you can!”
But instead the Dems passed a meaningless same-sex marriage bill along with $1.7 trillion in pork. Priorities!
They are sure trying hard to make her appear Presidential, aren’t they? If I were Joe I would make a public announcement that I wasn’t suicidal. It’s almost like our beloved rulers have decided that she will be the next President because she would be the easiest to manage. They don’t need competence because the last 2 years have proven that the role is just a figurehead anyway.
Molly Jong-Fast, with her communist capital-C grandparents whom she calls nymphomaniacs, her slutty badly-aged mom Erica Jong, her Playboy career, memoirs about her "sex doctors," and Bennington degree (do I even need the commas?), is quite frankly the perfect person to interview the vapid woman who puts the vice in Vice President. It's little wonder they both felt bored halfway through.
That's what happens with this sort of redundant interaction, to be polite.
Alternate Headline:
Big Shoes and a Short Leash
Kamala Harris Is Waiting To See
"Bringing together CEOs and business leaders to say, hey, you guys have resources and skill and expertise in certain areas, and coupling that with the bandwidth and the scope of what we can do as government, can be very powerful to have a very focused ability to look at the solutions to a problem."
Now, that's why I call clear thinking and communicative skills. Why, she's another Lincoln or Churchill!
Exactly what Temujin said @7:23am
Molly’s grandfather wrote the screenplay for Spartacus.
It would be very hard to underestimate Kamala Harris. Weigh a feather and knock off a few grams, perhaps.
First, it seems that Molly Jong-Fast had a hard time adjusting down to simple Harris and Party talking points. Her failings likely follow from working for a lefty publication and trying to find the bright side.
Second, armies sometimes get ahead of themselves. The tip of the spear advances far into enemy territory in combat, but the supply lines get stretched and vulnerable. Disasters happen when the front gets cut off from the supplies and soldiers become stuck in isolated and ineffective pockets.
The Democratic Party experienced a wide range of cultural advances starting with FDR, continuing with Johnson, and then falling apart with Carter. They then regrouped under Clinton in response to Reagan, but overall they remain incredibly stretched out ideologically. Harris offers platitudes as the Party fractured into several incoherent pieces under Clinton, against GW Bush, under Obama, and then into a million random extremes against Trump.
In the words of our latest supreme court justice...Democrats can't even define a woman. They can't define a nation. They can't define a border. They can't define corruption. They can't define impeachable offenses. They can't define a riot versus a peaceful protest versus an insurrection. They can't define hostile external nations (i.e., China OK, Russia evil). In total, this reveals an ineffective army that's charged into 1,000 dead ends or traps and still thinks it's winning the battle, but it has already lost.
Don't look down Wile-E-Coyote.
quite literally one heartbeat away from the presidency....
If only she had the right to abort Joe.
Damn you, Supreme Court!
All I can hear in my head when I read this is, "Stop trying to make Harris happen. It's not going to happen."
I do think that some of this is being driven by Biden's continued decline. I suspect that the original plan was for Biden to step back after a year, letting Harris be the face of the administration until it was time for her to take over. Instead, he, and all of his handlers, realize that she's a disaster.
Harris is the perfect example of the Peter Principal. She's risen to her level of incompetency. Her true accomplishment is that she makes Slo-Joe Biden look competent. That's why Slo-Joe picked her. The same reason Obama picked Slo-Joe.
Her greatest accomplishment is she's a world-class suck-up. Both literally and figuratively. Just ask Willie Brown about her abilities in that category.
Harris is a woman the occupies a powerful position (we can quibble as to whether the VP role is a powerful one), but she isn't a powerful woman. Like Biden and Trump before him, most of our leaders are just mediocre people with roles that outsize their abilities.
Brings to mind Garner's opinion:
Like most vice presidents in this era, Garner had little to do and little influence on the president's policies. He famously described the vice presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (for many years, this quote was bowdlerized as "warm spit".)
-- Wikipedia
“How dare they”? She even steals her outrage line from a teenage Swedish girl.
This made me smile. Never a trace of red.
The power of close reading and finding the nothing that lies beneath the words. This is why we come back.
How the hell can anyone see Harris as "powerful"?
She might become powerful if she becomes prez, that does not make her powerful now.
She could have power delegated to herby the prez. He hasn't so she has now power there.
The president of the senate has considerable powers. No vp has used them for a long time including Harris. So no power there.
I think Jong confuses celebrity and visibility with power and doesn't know the difference.
John Henry
Molly Jong-Fast in a Vanity Fair piece
I read this as "Molly Jong-Fast wears a vanity hairpiece", which sounds a lot more interesting.
The Wizard of Oz. Wait, you mean you're the one pulling the levers? That's kind of disappointing. Oh no, that's senile guy. I'm twiddling my thumbs, waiting my turn. Social justice, baby.
Harris is waiting in the wings to zipless fuck this country to its knees.
Harris is the twenty first century's Linda Lovelace, famous for the same reason.
Temujin said...
Oh my God, thank you for taking the time to read through and comment on this twaddle.
+ 1
Good to see your skeptical side, Althouse.
"Sitting across from [Kamala] Harris had me thinking about how I’ve devoted a good deal of my life to analyzing how the media, and Americans more generally, treat powerful women."
It's strange -- or maybe not so strange -- that sitting across from Harris had Molly thinking about herself and her own writing, rather than about Harris.
Kamala is something like an invisible woman. People don't see her because there's nothing much there to see. People just project their own thoughts and emotions on to her. That's a common risk at a time when everything is about race, gender, sexuality and identity and people get their jobs because they check certain boxes, but Kamala doesn't offer much that is positive and engaging. It would have been more to the point if Molly had reflected on how colorless and mediocre most vice-presidents have been. Harris is Pence in a pantsuit, only without Pence's positive qualities.
But I've been wanting to do something for a while and am glad you gave me the opening.
I want to wish everyone out there a Very Molly Jong-Fast again this year.
First female US VP, OK. But how does she stack up against Golda Mier, Indira Ghandi, or Margaret Thatcher? Or Condi Rice for that matter? Like someone said: furniture.
way friendlier and more accommodating than a man in her position would ever be.
Not only is she tarring men not present, she's tarring men not existent - men of her imagination.
What a ridiculous puff piece - and it doesn't even do its job of making Harris look worthy of being "first"! The writer just muses about her own feelings about and impressions of Harris, and then when she gets down to quoting Harris, Harris continues to be a blathering blowhard.
My husband thinks that's a feature, not a bug, as I mentioned the other day: Harris is almost (almost?) comically unresponsive, speaks in almost (almost?) comical word salad. How better to protect the Chief Executive's policies from criticism than to render them incomprehensible?
I guess the takeaway is that the first person to do something isn't always a worthy exemplar of her identity group, especially if she's a Democrat.
gilbar said...
Can ANYONE (Any One, at all?) point to ANYTHING (Any Thing at all?) that Kamela has EVER done?
EVER?
She put a bunch of poor black pot smokers in jail.
She didn't prosecute her rich white friends though.
Blogger Howard said...
What it is caused by is weak males see women as weaker targets of their attempts to intimidate and dominate. This is a challenge because women are very conscientious. Another issue is if they stand up for themselves, they get labeled a bitch.
This is how people who use skin color and gender to stereotype see the world.
The people who end up working in HR or government bureaucracy tend to act this way.
And just knowing Howard from his inanity on this board and the people that he hangs around I would guess that he and his Daughter has judged her boss on his looks and not on his actions and actual competency.
The Elmer Fudd Bugs Bunny act you two put on is typical bully/social click bullshit. It is standard passive aggressive behind the back cowardly crap I am teaching my kids to avoid.
But it is clear you are just a mean cowardly person at this point.
So the article is about the thoughts and emotions of the interviewER not the inteviewED?
This is modern journalism?
Tom Wolfe has a lot to answer for.
It can be the basis of Jack Ryan season 4 perhaps. Here in season 3, plodding through successive incomprehensible episodes with no plot (up to episode 7) and cliche action moments, we find Kamala interview material
Russian woman: You know, I followed your campaign closely.
Czech President woman: I'm flattered.
Russian woman: It's been more than 200 years since a woman led Russia. I'd like to see that change before I die.
Czech President: So would I.
Harris said "Wisconsin’s Tony Evers, who’s “going to veto what he has to, he’s going to do it right.” Just what does she think he will have to veto? I'm reliably informed by the feminists that our 1849 anti-abortion is the most draconian in the country. Does she think the Republican legislature is going to introduce an even worse one? Nothing is going to happen in Wisconsin and as has been the case for the last four years, Evers will be mostly a bystander.
"It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day."
-Kamala Harris
Like, literally impressive oratory, man.
Left me wondering if Molly is the product of a zipless fuck, and if zipless fucking is inheritable.
What's sad is that immigration could really use someone to help. Yes, Harris is ridiculous and Jong-Fast is mendacious. Now, though, our energy is spent pointing out their silly game instead of discussing someone in power who's addressing the issue (if such a person exists). Magician's sleight of hand accomplished.
As an American, I'm offended by the venal, vile destructive male politicians this country elects repeatedly.
As a woman, I'm even more offended that the "first" woman so often turns out to be every bit as corrupt as her male predecessors.
Yay, feminism! We're as bad as the men!
Catchy, that.
What else could she do? Harris is the emptiest of empty suits. The woman is vapid, uninteresting, and stupid all rolled into one poltician. She is practically the only politician that makes Joe Biden look less stupid by comparison. You wouldn't put Harris in charge of cleaning the toilets she is so incompetent.
The image I'm left with is Molly Jong-Fast, huffing and puffing to blow up this deflating sex doll of a VP, our Constitutional auto-pilot.
I would never, ever, ever wish harm upon politicians just because I think their positions are nutzo.
But I take a very small sense of comfort that the number 3 in line of succession will no longer be Pelosi.
Yeah, yeah, very small odds but still Biden - Harris - Pelosi, what a pathway.
"Jong-Fast is lost in her own thoughts. I have to presume Harris gave her nothing to write about."
The Vice President of the United States who's quite literally one heartbeat away from the presidency having nothing to say of note is, for an honest reporter, something great and important to write about.
Molly couldn't even ascribe Chance Gardiner-like profundities to Kamala's inanities is. In the hands of a non-hack, that's a critically important story, one that ratifies what we in California knew about her before she ran for president...and what the Dem base learned when she did run. There's no there there.
I feel like the comments above are literally just pretty interesting compared to the Jong-Fast piece let alone to Vice-President Harris.
Temujin said...
Oh my God, thank you for taking the time to read through and comment on this twaddle. I could only get through about half of your comments to her painful exercise, but you were nailing it every step of the way.
Agree completely.
What I find funny is that if Harris had even an ounce of actual political acumen, she'd be in the perfect position. She could have made a bunch of trips to the border, met with governors, and then come out and publicly broke with the Admin to support a border wall, more aggressive enforcement, and then cut a deal with GOP and "moderate" dems to hand the WH a compromise bill covering those things, plus amnesty for Dreamers along with a streamlined immigration process. It would have made her the power figure in DC, and set her up to challenge Biden in '24.
Well...Vanity Fair. I mean, really? Think about the role of Vanity Fair in Pilgrim's Progress.
It's the sort of piece a dilettante 'journalist' writes when she realizes her interviewee has the brains and charisma of a crash test dummy.
Even though my new year of wagering on events(all kinds) won't start up until January 2023, I would project a wager opening at least 8-1 that the men who always complain about whining women ,live alone and couldn't buy a relationship based on a strong powerful women for example a wife, mother ,grandmother ,lover and all giving Christian who serves her Gods will of the greatest two commandments ever written, Love God above all things and two love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, unless they could be dominated by the outdated, like 8 tracks gone away, patriarchal idea. 21ST ain't having it. My wife of 42 years+ never whines, complains about much at all and she is powerful In Gods eyes that I would definitely lay high odds on. Whining men about whining women, interesting. You can spot them a mile away
I imagine Hillary reading this piece...and a stream of bitter invective.
When incapable of elaboration, Harris often reverts to that stuck-in-the-mud style of repetition.
"We just like each other a lot. We just like each other. It’s really nice. It’s really nice."
How in the wide wide world of sports could Harris have not known that the writer was the daughter of Erica Jong? That doesn't even seem possible.
Harris knows that MILLIONS have illegally entered the country and that we are letting in AT LEAST 1 million legal immigrants a year. Not to mention all the H-1B, many of whom overstay their visa and NEVER leave.
Yet, she continues to lie about "Business needs more workers". It should be noted she and Biden smashed the Railway workers when they wanted a few more sick days.
One reason the Establishment hates Trump is he's only major political leader of the last 20 years to push back against open borders and amnesty. Of course, all the dumbo Republican "Moderates" didn't like it. They despise Trump and favor massive immigration, completely oblivious to the connection between immigration and the Democract Parties growing stregnth.
Harris knows that MILLIONS have illegally entered the country and that we are letting in AT LEAST 1 million legal immigrants a year. Not to mention all the H-1B, many of whom overstay their visa and NEVER leave.
Yet, she continues to lie about "Business needs more workers". It should be noted she and Biden smashed the Railway workers when they wanted a few more sick days.
One reason the Establishment hates Trump is he's only major political leader of the last 20 years to push back against open borders and amnesty. Of course, all the dumbo Republican "Moderates" didn't like it. They despise Trump and favor massive immigration, completely oblivious to the connection between immigration and the Democract Parties growing stregnth.
As for Harris herself, I don't care.
Biden is completely senile and an idiot. Its not even clear if he's the one making the decisions. So, how can Harris be worse? The American people already voted for a tottering old fool who couldn't campaign or answer questions - so the bar has been set so low, even Harris can jump over it and be POTUS.
How to deal with Elmer Fudds:
I am getting tactful as hell, and in this case it is true. I think that if you treat a skunk nicely, he will not piss on you---as often
George S. Patton
I don't what it is about certain political leaders that trigger Republicans and Conservatives. Obama came in for a lot of abuse, yet he was no different Clinton or Biden. Harris seems to be an intelligent, somewhat honest, Democrat Pol who believes in everything they all do. If she becomes POTUS she will act like Biden or Obama.
WIth Repubican POTUS you never you'll get. Are you going to get Ford or Reagan. Trump or Bush. With Democrats, its always the same cookie-cutter neo-liberalism.
What came first, the power or the blowjobs?
I love powerful women if they are capable and smart.
Kamala is neither...
“She quite literally was an affirmative action pick for VP.”
Oh, it’s worse than that. Objectively, I would be OK with that if the person was qualified. But Harris, like Ketanji Jackson, was a pre-designated token pick. Which blows my mind, but is consistent with the paternalistic racism of Democrats.
My wife of 42 years+ never whines, complains about much at all and she is powerful In Gods eyes that I would definitely lay high odds on. Whining men about whining women, interesting. You can spot them a mile away
Your wife must be oppressed. Sounds like the boast of a serious patriarch.
Abortion rites, because women, and men, lack dignity and agency. Human rites performed for social, redistributive, clinical, political, and fair weather causes, to sequester the "burden" of evidence in darkness, so that underage girls and their masculinist companions may enjoy social progress. Life is but a negotiable commodity.
Harris is the perfect example of the Peter Principal. She's risen to her level of incompetency.
In my mind, the Peter Principle is a terrible analogy. For it to apply, you have to come up with competency in some area.
Graduating college displays zero level of skill.
Graduating law school, shows some level of skill memorizing material to pass tests. But not an ability to apply concepts to real time situations.
Passing the Bar, again requires some good memorization skills.
Getting elected is not a skill. The skill is finding donors willing to support you. That skill is scalable. Harris whored herself out to a guy that did it for her.
San Francisco DA. Willy Horton got her the position.
San Francicso DA is where the rubber meets the road. That is a substantial administrative position. A great place to learn the set of skills needed to advance in politics. Building an administrative, and political staff to advance herself. She failed miserably. Spectacularly failed.
This is how people are supposed to find their strength and weaknesses. Harris may have strengths, but no part of politics is in her, yet to found skill set.
I wonder of Jong-Fast arranged this interview herself . Or it was assigned. 'Thanks a ton, boss. What am I supposed to do with this?"
“That’s your mom?” she said. “Nobody tells me anything around here!”
Molly's been around for a while and almost very time her name comes up it is mentioned that she is Erica's daughter.
That remark by Kamala must have cut to the bone.
Reminiscent of "Stop trying to make 'fetch' happen."
Kamala Harris is "fetch"
Our country could care less about men that are left behind. But if a woman is in distress, look out -- there is an army of social workers that will respond within hours. This phenomenon extends into the domain of labor market discrimination: we judge discrimination against women as morally abhorrent (though the very same discrimination against men is okay).
I think whatever bullsh*t Kamala Harris is suffering through is a big nothing burger. So she sounds like a hyena when she laughs. Or Ms. Harris is a babbling, amoral idiot. Boo hoo! This is nothing like the freak show that surrounds every powerful male politician (and Hillary Clinton -- the exception that proves the rule). No one is accusing Kamala Harris of treason, rape, murder or whatever.
She could have just asked her to explicate her use of tautologies. What is her theory of tautologies? What are the best practical
uses of tautologies,etc.? She could have used colorful examples from her little yellow school bus speech, the one in which she used an actual rhetorical question. After all, she is the queen of tautologies.
Kamala is to Joe Biden as Incitatus (the horse) was to the Emperor Caligula. But where Joe succeeded in making Kamala V.P. poor old Incitatus did not obtain a Consulship. Caligula having pissed off the Roman elites was violently removed by the Praetorians. I suspect the horse wound-up as dinner for a bunch of plebes. Kamala better stay vigilant for our current crop of Praetorians. Who might they be?
Taylor Lorenz interviewing Vice President Britney Spears would have been just as illuminating.
Harris is the perfect example of the Peter Principal. She's risen to her level of incompetency.
Then San Fran DA would have been her peak. She was apparently qualified for the "job" that got her there.
5...4...3...2...1...Kamala.
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