11/13/2024
Finding something nice to say.
I recently watched a podcast where Ben Shapiro was asked to say two things he liked about Kamala Harris.
He said that he liked that she ran a campaign that wasn’t fully centered on race… then he struggled, and ultimately failed to come up with a second thing. It was the first time I have seen Ben Shapiro at a loss for words.
The first draft of this essay had a far different tone. I basically wrote down all her political faults as something to like about her. Then I started thinking about how things must’ve actually been for her, and I decided to ditch the sarcasm.
In my scathing rebuke of her political ability, I actually discovered something nice to say about her. Something that I like, respect and admire about her (despite having so little to work with).
Here it is:
Kamala Harris was thrown into the deep end of the political pool. She wasn’t ready for prime time. She wasn’t ready for a national stage.
The Democrats put her in the game, in order to put her on the bench. Her vice presidency was largely ignored by the Democrats. Instead of using the time to prepare her to take over… they did nothing.
The entire focus of the Democrats was to keep quarterback Joe in the game… the backup QB got zero practice with the team.
Then, one day, Nancy Pelosi told her she was going to be put in the game… sort of. She was still backup QB, but she had to lead the team to victory.
Can you imagine? Seriously! I would have told Nancy that Hillary deserved whatever the future held more. And I would have meant it!
They asked Kamala to be QB in the third quarter, with 0 points on the board, no preparation, in the deep end of a pool…in the ring with Iron Mike.
It really didn’t matter that they stacked the cheerleading squad in her favor… she was put into a losing proposition.
But, she actually got in there and did it. And now she’s going to be blamed by them for not being up to carrying a team from a second-string position.
Being Kamala Harris has got to be difficult. It’s thankless and borders on “public humiliation ritual” territory.
I don’t normally believe in participation trophies, but if there was ever anyone who actually earned one, it’s Kamala Harris.
She might have barely participated… but she stayed in the game to the end… hell, got in the game at all!
I won’t miss her, I will spend the rest of my life disagreeing with her political opinions.
But if she discharges her legal obligations and confirms Donald J. Trump as 47th President of the United States of America… I will raise a glass and quietly say; “Ma’am, you have earned more than a few boxes of Chardonnay.”
I don’t think she played a good game (for the Democrats), I don’t think she’s ever going to be qualified to be President, and I don’t feel sorry for her. But, I absolutely admire her for going through what she went through. I admire her for not stomping off 90 days after being sworn in as VP and taking a gig at MSNBC… (Or 11 days, like Anthony Scaramucci).
Mostly, I admire that she took the licks for Scranton Joe. She protected her boss from the shellacking the American people wanted to give him… that’s a standup thing to do… that’s an old school mafia style standup thing to do.
Walter Mondale gave the American people time to cool down before he took one more beating on Carter’s behalf… Kamala just jumped in the ring midfight and got walloped!
Kamala will get her book deals, speaking engagements at $20k an hour, and all the Chardonnay she can drink… maybe she’ll even get on the board of Lockheed Martin. But 50 years from now she’ll be no more relevant than Spiro Agnew is now.
History will forget her quickly, and I will struggle to remember her name in a few years. But never let it be said that I couldn’t say something nice about her… two things, even!
