I used to follow the news so I could laugh at the corruption of politicians. Now I follow the news so I can laugh at the corruption of the news.
The best laugh this week came from CNN, when “New Day” anchorman John Berman opined that Joe Biden’s VP selection of Kamala Harris presented some sort of problem for the Trump campaign. “You could see it play out overnight in the Trump campaign and on Fox TV, which is I guess not the Trump campaign, but sometimes it’s a distinction without a difference,” Berman quipped.
This must be a CNN talking point because it was echoed in the hilariously named Reliable Sources Newsletter (in which only the half-word -letter contains even a scrap of truth). The “news” letter, edited by expert media experts Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy, declared, “you’d be forgiven if you mistook [Fox News] for a Trump 2020 campaign livestream.”
Meanwhile, here — courtesy of Newsbusters — is a fair sampling of CNN’s coverage of Kamala Harris’s opening campaign speech:
“A fantastic speech. She absolutely nailed it.” Nia-Malika Henderson, Senior Political Reporter.
“Extremely strong.” Chief political correspondent Dana Bash.
“Very powerful.” Chief political analyst Gloria Borger.
“There was a relaxed quality to her while… delivering, you know, some blistering lines of attack.” Host of “AC360” Anderson Cooper.
“It’s as if she was saying [these words] from the mountaintop as opposed to just a high school gymnasium there.” Jeff Zeleny, Senior (and utterly shameless) Washington Correspondent.
I’ll leave off quoting CNN there, lest too much incisive analysis should overfill your mind with political wisdom. But I do have to mention that Berman’s “New Day” comment was followed by a seemingly endless panel discussion on how Fox’s Tucker Carlson mispronounced Harris’s name. Tucker made her sound more like a camel than a comma, and this, said the panelists, was just one more straw on the Kamala’s back of how women and blacks and black women and women who are black are treated in this godforsaken racist hellpit we call America.
Yeah! Except when Biden first introduced his running mate, he also mispronounced her name the same way so… something something something.
But the press wasn’t just celebrating Harris’s Moses-like oratory and non-dromedary first name. It was also defending her against accusations of being a far leftist. We were repeatedly told that Harris was a “pragmatic moderate,” (New York Times, former newspaper), “from the middle-of-the-road, moderate wing of the Democratic Party,” (George Stephanopoulos, ABC Anchor and Clinton Hack) or a “centrist,” (Associated Press, whatever that used to be).
But what all this really means is that, like Biden himself, Harris will say whatever she thinks she has to, so it’s hard to pin her politics down. She supported the destruction of private insurance, then didn’t; she called for more police, then less; she opposed the death penalty, and defended it, and so on.
Plus she’s corrupt. As San Francisco District Attorney, she failed to disclose exculpatory evidence affecting over a thousand cases, including a case involving a man on death row. While California Attorney General, she used underhanded methods to scupper a deal that would have funded failing hospitals, because the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West didn’t like the deal. A lawsuit charges the union promised her 25-million dollars in campaign contributions in return. And when pro-life activist David Daleiden got hidden camera recordings of Planned Parenthood executives discussing peddling dead baby parts, Harris went after — wait for it — Daleiden. She sued him by means of an unprecedented use of an anti-eavesdropping law. According to documents secured by pro-life group Operation Rescue, Harris has received over 80-thousand dollars in campaign contributions from various Planned Parenthood organizations.
And finally, she’s garbage on the stump. Her primary campaign didn’t even make it to Christmas before it crashed and burned. This is from a New York Times analysis of why her campaign “unraveled”: “Her decline is more predictable than surprising. …Ms. Harris and her closest advisers made flawed decisions about which states to focus on, issues to emphasize and opponents to target, all the while refusing to make difficult personnel choices to impose order on an unwieldy campaign.” One campaign veteran said that she had never seen staff treated so poorly.
Whoever decides things for what used to be Joe Biden made a bad decision this time. It is going to take an awful lot of corrupt journalism to sell anyone but the most stalwart and willfully ignorant Democrats on the greatness of Kamala Harris. But by golly, the American press may well have what it takes.