That's the first of the 3 — only 3? it's usually 5 — "takeaways" offered by the NYT in "3 Takeaways From Kamala Harris’s Interview on MSNBC."
The piece, by Reid J. Epstein, is subtitled "In her first one-on-one cable TV interview since becoming the nominee, the vice president repeatedly dodged direct questions and stuck firmly on message." That is harsh, but I have to assume it's written tactfully. (And I did try to watch it myself.)
Fleshing out "takeaway" #1, Epstein writes: "Ms. Harris responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer."
The other 2 "takeaways" are: "She avoided a looming scenario: What if Democrats lose the Senate?" and "A hard-hitting Harris interview is still yet to come." Sorry, I think #3 repeats #1. And though #2 looks specific, it's just specific about the same generality that constitutes ##1 and 3: She didn't say anything of substance.
And this was with what Epstein called a "friendly inquisitor" — Stephanie Ruhle — on a "liberal cable channel whose viewers overwhelmingly favor Democratic candidates" — MSNBC. It was "roughly in the same ballpark as Mr. Trump having one of his regular chats with Sean Hannity of Fox News."
***
What's with my scare quotes around "takeaway"? It's a pretty recent usage, an infestation from the world of business. Back in 1976 — not so long ago! — the NYT put it in quotes:
1. "Yesterday, what had been generally amicable mood surrounding the talks evaporated when [a UAW leader] characterized G.M.'s first set of contract proposals as a 'harsh' set of 'takeaways' that 'can only mean that [the company] is bent on direct confrontation.'"
2. "[The UAW president] called the Ford proposal 'the most regressive offer in all my years of bargaining'... not only because of the basic wage offer, but also because of what he called a series of 'takeaway' items."
It seems to have been labor-union lingo at that time. And I think that referred to things that were to be taken away from the workers. I can also see that "takeway" is a golf term, and it's also a type of restaurant.
The common usage I'm seeing in headlines these days relates to something the OED traces to 1990: "A key fact, point, or idea to be remembered, typically one emerging from a discussion or meeting."
The oldest examples the OED gives are "What is the takeaway from the meeting?" and "What's your takeaway from the past week's discussions with marketing folks?"
See? That's business lingo. When did that break out into these clickbait headlines I see after all sorts of political speeches and debates? And why is it so often 5? Something magic about 5? I'll bet the NYT writer wanted to get it up to 5. But he had to stretch to get to 3.
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Sometimes I'm haunted by the ghost of William Safire.
If you're against William Safire, you're probably a nattering nabob of negativity.
I found this in the Telegraph this morning. It's a good catechism for any candidate.
"The late Tony Benn had five questions to address to democratic power:
What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?"
The same ballpark as Trump having a chat with Hannity? Whoa, haha. You can't say anything more demeaning about an interview than that.
That’s her last interview.
Here's the metaphor that springs to my twisted mind. I swear, this is how the people in charge think it's going to turn out.
At the end, someone 'rips off a wig' (finally gives a hint for what's next...) and confesses, "Dammit, I'm a man!", then America responds by saying "Nobody's Perfect!" Then we all ride off into the sunset together. I call it "Inga's Happy Ending."
I think of the word takeaway as British for take-out, as in food picked up at a restaurant and carried away to be eaten elsewhere. This meal was missing a couple of the items ordered, only 3 not 5 tacos. So it wasn't very filling, we're still hungry, in the kitchen now looking for some nuts or crackers, something to munch on. Not like when we order from that other restaurant, the Trump Takeaway place, the one that usually adds a couple of cookies for us to eat even if we didn't order those.
I was thinking the same thing Kate. Also, "Oh wow, rare honesty in the NYT."
Here is Stephanie Ruhle on Bill Mather’s show saying it doesn’t matter what Kamala says.
Wasn't there something about their doing back to back interviews in October? Or did that fall through?
Bret Stephens, and several of the few remaining adults at the NYT, are truly wondering how their employer and their profession got to this disgraceful place.
Maybe scare quotes because there was nothing to “takeaway” from the interview because it was just another empty word salad. Alas, if I can form a take that Kamala wants to be a blank slate for voters to make of her in any joyous, but definitely not weird, way possible, then I have that take to takeaway.
We can be certain that if she were to win, we will here about her mandate from the voters despite voters having no idea what her policies are.
Sally327--that is a brilliant play on the takeaway comment. I wish I had said that--and I probably will, but I'll give you full credit.
Wow even the NYT professional spinners cannot fluff her non-answers into a five-point list. Is anyone surprised that (a) Kamala was not asked hard questions and yet (b) she still is unable to provide any substantive answers. Incapable seems to be her one-word encapsulation. Thoroughly incapable. Whatever the question, that's the answer regarding Kamala.
I can also see that "takeway" is a golf term The ‘takeaway’ refers to the first movement of the club away from the ball. In the McLean eight step swing it is step 1b. Hogan referred to it as the first ‘crossroad’…
I watched Ruhle and Stephens on Maher. Stephens wanted to take the measure of Harris. Ruhle said she knows all she needs to know because TRUMP. She apparently is part of the "journalists against journalism" movement.
Gotta love this: "It was 'roughly in the same ballpark as Mr. Trump having one of his regular chats with Sean Hannity of Fox News.'" I'd argue Sean is tougher on Trump than Ruhle was on Kamala, as he at least pushes him to explain controversial quotes and asks about policy expecting, and receiving, specific answers. Ruhle did none of that. As expected. The only time she pinned her down for a yes or no answer was the stupid Big Mac question, accompanied by giggles of course. And no follow-up. Like when? Where? How long? Nothing.
It now seems as if Ruhle's appearance on Bill Mahr last Friday was indeed her audition for this exercise in fluffery.
Now do ‘roundabout’…
Wasn't it Stephens (on Maher's show) to whom Ruhle made her ridiculous comment about Kamala not needing to answer any questions?
If one had doubts about that, they are now dispelled. RIP journalism.
I've always hated that song.
Althouse's analysis of The View interview with Biden has three more substantive takeaways than the NYT assessment of Ruhle's T-ball session with Harris. I think I'll default to Harris from now on, as it reminds me of the Barney Miller character, who was kind of a high-self-regarding peacock dufus, like our current Harris.
Kamala is merely auditioning to play the President on television. She lacks improv skills, but Management's script writers will feed her all the lines she needs.
"Sometimes I'm haunted by the ghost of William Safire."
Perfect. That one got me laughing. I believe it to be true. :)
I do miss Mr. Safire. We have had entire generation(s) who never got to read him. They don't know what they missed. Anyway...
Kamala appearing with the person who has spent weeks defending her, Stephanie Ruhle, is precisely like Donald Trump appearing (yet again) with Hannity. The difference is that when Trump is with Hannity, no one pretends it's a hard hitting interview. We all know it's a talk, covering hot topics for conservatives. It's a plate of red meat for steak eaters and everyone knows this.
Kamala on MSNBC, with Stephanie Ruhle? Anyone pretending that this was an attempt at a hard hitting interview is simply playing along with the entire Potemkin Production. This is laughable.
Even with this set up, Kamala could not answer a question. She would repeat keywords, no doubt selected by her team after much debate. She is notably at her worst in an area she trails Trump by the most: the Economy. She simply cannot talk about this topic. She knows little, seems to have no understanding of how the economy actually works, and seems to think that companies are the problem while government is the cure. That never works, and anyone who has paid any attention to any other place in any other time would know this.
She also shows a proclivity to thinking that her role as President would be that of Chief Prosecuting Attorney in the land. And she would use her role to go after 'companies and corporations'. Nice touch.
How this is even close I cannot fathom.
There’re enough of these interviews in the can now. We can safely and without fear of changing our minds conclude that she is not leadership material in any way. She’s tentative, evasive and awkwardly self-conscious.
Never forget that Ruhle sold credit derivatives successfully for 14 years before 2011. She was one of The Big Short perpetrators. She knows all about fluffery.
"Sometimes I'm haunted by the ghost of William Safire."
He's kind of like the Roman Empire in that way. But careful language has gone out of style, in lockstep with careful thinking.
"9/26/24, 7:44 AM
Temujin
How this is even close I cannot fathom."
You've read our resident dullard Inga's comments, right? She's not one of a kind.
What worries me is the possibility that she is not the empty cipher that she plays on TV, and indeed has plans, plans she knows full well we wouldn't like.
"Here is Stephanie Ruhle on Bill Mather’s show saying it doesn’t matter what Kamala says."
Epstein does cover that, but I didn't want to quote too much. Thanks for the link.
There is a famous story about Senator Barack Obama complaining to Roger Ailes about Sean Hannity's negative comments. Ailes said, "Senator, you have nothing to worry about. Anyone who watches Sean Hannity is never going to vote for you under any circumstances." Ailes also referred to Joe Biden as "about as smart as that ashtray over there."
She's a propagandist doing her job. Nobody could possibly believe the things she says with a straight face.
It was "roughly in the same ballpark as Mr. Trump having one of his regular chats with Sean Hannity of Fox News."
EXCEPT.. This is ONLY one she's done. She's not regular about ANY THING
Yea, British usage. It generally describes an establishment that "to go" only.
"Ms. Harris responded to the fairly basic and predictable questions with roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer."
This is disturbing, especially coming from the NYT.
We know she is capable of memorizing canned answers to predictable questions. Why didn't they write up some answers for her to these questions and have her memorize them?
Something is wrong here, like how there were many indications something was wrong with Biden, but they were able to hide it for a long time.
"roundabout responses that did not provide a substantive answer" Has she ever shown any substance on any subject? Has she ever responded clearly and directly to any question? For that matter, has she ever formulated an argument about anything? I mean, more than attitudinizing--abortion great, filibuster bad, that sort of thing.
But being an empty vessel is useful. Not too prog to scare off "moderates" during the election. Sufficiently prog to do the prog thing 24/7 after November.
Stephanie Ruhle always seemed like the daughter who was able to break away and get her own place, while Willie Geist was the son who is still living in Joe and Mika's basement (with the two crazy uncles, Barnicle and Deutsch, up in the attic), but I guess Stephanie didn't really get that far from home.
"Kamala Harris is not running for perfection. She's running against Trump. We have two choices. And so, there are some things you might not know her answer to. And in 2024, unlike 2016 for a lot of the American people, we know exactly what Trump will do, who he is, and the kind of threat he is to democracy," Ruhle said.
By now, we do know who Trump is, what he did, and that he's not much of a threat to democracy. All the more reason for Harris to give specific answers about what she wants to do.
“Dreams and Aspirations”
Prepare for POTA!
That interview actually aged me. It’s the damnedest thing.
Sounds like the criticism of Kamala is in the style of… Kamala.
Resist we fucking much!
Stephanie Ruele as “the Beav”…
Agreed. If she’s not telling what she’d do, why she’s flip-flopped on a number things, it’s a giant red flag on that score.
Marshmallow fluff questions, word salad for answers.
Only folks wholeheartedly supporting Harris/Walz ticket seems to be wine-drinking women and possibly their beta spouses. Harris is tentatively packaged as just another "nice" suburban tennis mom. But we know college-educated AWFLs often have the sharpest claws, and media has cooperatively ignored her well-publicized history of slothful working habits and hostile work-environments. While packaged as our basically harmless first woman president, as per nonexistent policy statements, she's extreme left socialist-progressive to her core, despite her Tiffany pearls and Akris pantsuits.
LOL!
Any day now, Harris is going to tell the American people what her plans are. Any. Day. Now.
The Democrats are trying to put forward the idea, that whatever it is Harris says, isn't important. There is no reason to think about voting for Harris. There is nothing to find out, nothing of concern. It's not important enough to worry about. Just vote for Harris.
Think I'm wrong? What have they been doing with Joe Biden since early 2020? Did it work? Yes it did - for a relatively high percentage of voters.
Low information voting ! It's the future ! Forward !
Darn I missed this! Did she begin the interview with “I come from a middle class family?” Was mention made of Lawn Pride?
Not asking serious questions seems to be Ruhle's thing. Like Harris, she's riding the woman power wave, leaning in for personal success, and not thinking much along the way. Neither of them seems very self-aware.
Down in Montreal, where the agitators parlez vous
Lived a girl, that I swear to the world
Would get there in a minute or two
Word Salad Kammie, Obama won a Grammy
Everybody said it was a shame
That she spoke in circles like it was some kid’s game
A cacklin’, unserious woman
“In and around her mouth
She stoops and she’s movin’ south
They just stand there”
THIS
POTA: Planet Of The Apes
Harris' answers to questions seemed designed to discourage any kind of follow-up discussion, even follow-ups from a political ally like Ruhle.
Here's what I think the problem is: About 40 years, candidates preparing for debates came to the realization that they could essentially answer a different question from the one that was actually asked, run out the clock that way, and get away with it because most viewers wouldn't notice. However, KH has taken the idea to an untenable extreme by trying to apply it not just to debates but to one-on-one, sit-down interviews as well. In an interview setting, however, especially where the questioner is a friendly reporter who's just trying to make it a relaxed "conversation," you can't just ignore the person's question and give a little memorized speech. If you do, then it comes across as some combination of weird, insulting, and retarded. In this case, it's a disaster for KH because not only has she missed multiple opportunities to connect with voters by giving thoughtful, relevant answers to various interviewers' questions, she has made herself a laughingstock with a large segment of the public in the way she has so awkwardly tried to avoid answering questions.
So mezzrow "Like it Hot" :-)
The VP "debate" with Walz and Vance is coming up October 1. That is why Harris wanted another debate with Trump. "Damage control." Hilarious.
why not Psaki on her pscyrcle back?
does not every President elect get a blank check ?
Even right-wingers know Sean Hannity is a meathead.
Maybe we are being unfair to Kamala. She did not write her script. The best minds of the Democratic Party have no answers to questions about immigration, or inflation, or crime, or foreign policy. Telling the truth is not an option. That leaves evasion, denial, lies, and distractions with the biggest distraction being accusations against Trump. Kamala is merely the performer.
It’s hard. I can’t write three good, honest, sentences that will persuade someone to vote for Kamala.
Inga, wish to try? Rich? Anyone? If you use the word “Trump” you fail the challenge.
G-Pub
Calling what Harris spews pablum gives pablum a bad name.
In our house, his nickname is Dufus.
I bet Inga thought it was great.
It’s Oscar Meyer all day long at the leftwing networks… every single one of ‘em.
If she has a surviving brain cell, it will be the last interview.
Important life lesson: Left-wing idiocy doesn’t make Sean Hannity any less of a meathead.
Twitter reports that Harris said "holistically" twice and "holistic" once in 15 seconds, and some are laughing at her for that.
When I read that I couldn't help thinking of something I saw on a street corner in San Francisco ~45 years ago. (If anyone is wondering, it was across the street from the alley that has a historical marker for something that never happened: the murder of Sam Spade's partner.) Someone had posted a xeroxed flyer on a telephone pole, an advertisement for some kind of New Age experience, that used the words "holism", "holist", and "holistic" at least fifteen times. Someone else had very carefully, imitating the font of the flyer, used a black felt-tip pen to add "(ass)" before every single "hol-". In all the years since then, I've never been able to see any of the cognates of "holistic" without chuckling.
Here's a much better critique of the interview. (and there's 5 points). w.r.t. the economy, she told a big, blatant lie. First she threw out this "Trump left us with the worst economy since the Great Depression" line. Ruhl actually pointed out it was during Covid. Harris then claimed Trump lost 200k manufacturing jobs before Covid. Apparently the real number is he gained 400k manu. jobs. But now that they've thrown this lie out there, expect to see it again and again.
I'm coming around to the idea advanced by another commerter here that she's got some sort of anxiety issues that get really bad when she has to do a solo performance.
AofSHQ had a post a couple of days ago about a lawyer who tried to find any cases actually argued by Harris as DA (DAs will at least sometimes argue appeals of cases brought by their office even if they don't argue original cases) and could find none
Hello, Straw Man !
"That's business lingo. When did that break out into these clickbait headlines"
Business lingo has crept into all aspects of our culture.
We must pivot to meet the moment, circle back and think outside of the box. In other words, we need to take a deep dive into the low hanging fruit and leverage more bandwidth to support our partners. We need all hands on deck to get all our ducks in a row to find the best practices to move the needle. So at the close of the day I need everyone to drill down to provide for actionable game changers and not put things on the back burner. If anyone needs a one on one, we can sidebar later. Period. Full stop.
Wow the NY state appeals court just showed extreme skepticism when the Solicitor could not show any other examples of such harsh penalties as imposed on Trump. "All the historical examples were consumer fraud," one judge said, noting that no consumers were harmed by Trump's actions and that the banks continued to lend him money.
Sounds like what every reasonable person here said at the time. Just once I'd like to see the anti-Trump ravers show us just one other case that resembles his. ANY of his. (I'm hoping Althouse posts her thoughts on the proceedings today.)
More like a meathead orgy.
You’re a rock star!
If a cabal of powerful people wanted to put their very own attractive intersectional puppet on the ballot, it would be important that the puppet speak in the broadest possible generalities, in order to give the puppeteers maximum post-election latitude, and in order to give voters the mushiest screen possible upon which to project their political wishlist.
Who are the puppeteers, and what do they believe? One thing that they don't believe: the American voters are intelligent. One thing they do believe: the New York Times is on their side.
I think Inga actually believes that stuff she posts here. Hard to believe but there is a Bell Curve.
Well said.
Somebody was bragging about that appeal and sliming him today.
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