Saturday, October 02, 2021

Pliable Principles


One of the great unexplored mysteries of American politics is the political ideology of Kamala Harris. In an early primary debate in the last election cycle

Harris told Biden that in the 1970s there was a “failure of states to integrate public schools in America,” so “that’s where the federal government must step in.”

During an MSNBC interview after the debate, she again called out Biden’s opposition to federal involvement, saying “we have certain values that are national standards, and we’re not going to let states compromise that.”

On Wednesday, again asked her position by reporters, Harris said busing should be “considered” by school districts. But she would not go so far as to say she would support mandating it.

“Busing is a tool among many that should be considered,” Harris said at a picnic in West Des Moines. Pressed for a firmer yes or no as to whether she would support mandatory busing, Harris did not offer one Wednesday.

In that debate, Joe Biden had explained "I did not oppose busing in America. What I opposed is busing ordered by the Department of Education. That put Harris at the same place on busing as Biden, whom had days earlier condemned for standing in the way of progress for black Americans.

As Attorney General of California, Harris and the governor's office embarked on a strategy of avoiding implementation of a 2009 order from the US Supreme Court to reduce overcrowding in the state's prisons. By 2013, Harris' office had "launched into a campaign of all-out obstruction, refusing to answer why they could not simply release low-risk, nonviolent inmates to conform to the Supreme Court’s request. “

In the summer of 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement in vogue, Vice President Harris contributed to a fund ostensibly to bail out protestors, though most of the funds were allocated to secure the release of other alleged offenders (not that a former prosecutor could have seen that coming).

When the Vice President was told by a student at a forum at George Mason University that Israel commits "ethnic genocide." the V.P. encouraged the young woman to express "her truth." However

“Throughout her career, the Vice President has been unwavering in her commitment to Israel and to Israel’s security,” Harris’s spokeswoman, Symone Sanders, said Friday in a statement to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. “While visiting George Mason University to discuss voting rights, a student voiced a personal opinion during a political science class. The Vice President strongly disagrees with the student’s characterization of Israel.”

Harris had reached out to Jewish organizations after sustaining criticism from Republicans and some Jewish communal figures for not correcting the student during a visit to a political science class. Harris was on the campus Tuesday to attend a voting rights rally.

Harris herself did not retract her apparent support for the preposterous notion that the Israeli government commits genocide. (Along the way, the murderous soldiers overlooked the Arabs in the Knesset, a rookie mistake.) Still, the Vice President is on the record- sort of- as believing Israel commits genocide and that it doesn't. 

Generously considered, Harris' ideological perspectives are flexible, susceptible to change as circumstances dictate.  Generous, but naive. More likely, Kamala Harris believes in little else but herself.






No comments:

Not Enlightening

Smug meets smug. Audie Cornish and Scott Jennings are both wrong. Jennings: Are you saying I'm not a Christian? Cornish: It's a val...