Thursday, August 24, 2023

Christie and Two Democratic Presidents



In a very indirect way, this tweet has a connection to Wednesday night's GOP presidential debate and illustrates a trait cutting across party lines.

At 4:38 of the video below, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, slamming Vivek Ramaswamy, bellows

I've had enough already tonight of a guy who sounds like Chat GPT and the last person at one of these debates, Bret, who stood in the middle of the stage and said "what's a skinny guy with an odd last name doing up here" was Barack Obama and I'm afraid we're dealing with the same type of amateur standing on the stage tonight. 

             .


That was a powerful line, especially directed at the Republican street, which has a score to settle with Barack Obama because he was elected twice and still- still!- that awful liberal media won't admit that racism is dead in the country. Nonetheless, Ramaswamy was up to the challenge, remarking "give me a hug, just like you did to Obama and you'll help elect me just as you did..." (the rest drowned out by the audience).

Ramaswamy was responding not to a hug but to the effusive praise given President Obama by Governor Christie when the latter two toured the New Jersey Shore following the devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy. It was a few days before the presidential election Obama would go on to win and a year before Christie's own successful re-election campaign, assisted by the lovefest, the following year. Christie was disloyal to GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney, for whom he had been a surrogate but undercut shortly before the election with the over-the-top applause for Romney's opponent.


   


Eight years later, the man who had served as Obama's vice-president would behave similarly. Obversely, it would not be a case of disloyalty but of loyalty to someone who had been insulting to him. In an early campaign debate, in June of 2019

California Sen. Kamala Harris called out Biden on the issue of race, saying the way he recently described his past working relationship with two segregationist lawmakers was “hurtful.”

Biden, at a campaign event earlier this month, had cited his ability to get things done even with segregationist senators as examples of the type of “civility” in Congress that has since disappeared. Numerous Democratic presidential candidates took Biden to task for the comments, though some, including civil rights icon John Lewis, defended the 2020 frontrunner’s remarks.

Harris also accused Biden of opposing busing, which Biden disputed.

“There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day, and that little girl was me,” Harris said.

“I will tell you that on this subject, it cannot be an intellectual debate among Democrats. We have to take it seriously. We have to act swiftly.”

It turned out that the stunt was months in the making and within hours t-shirts reading "That little girl was me" were selling on her website for $29.

Harris, it was discovered, had held the almost identical view of busing has had the man she characterized as dangerously insensitive to blacks (my phrase).  "Dangerously insensitive to blacks" would appear euphemistic to some individuals, such as to Joe Biden's wife herself, who criticized Harris for allegedly accusing her husband of being racist.

That's "racist," as in  

I think that they were looking at the past. I mean, the one thing you cannot say about Joe is that he’s a racist. I mean, he got into politics because of his commitment to civil rights. And then to be elected with Barack Obama, and then someone is saying, you know, you’re a racist?

Twelve months after being justifiably condemned by the woman Joe Biden professes his love and admiration for, Harris was nominated by the77-year-old  presumptive Democratic nominee to be his running mate and with victory in November, a heartbeat from the presidency. 

There were many other individuals, including black women, qualified to be on the ticket, but only one had publicly berated Joe for being insensitive, bigoted, or racist. But- or maybe therefore- she was the one selected.

Donald J. Trump should be criticized for innumerable things, one of which is lack of loyalty, as Jenna Ellis apparently now realizes. However, lack of loyalty is not the worse of his sins, especially when considering that it's not an uncommon trait among very successful politicians. 



No comments:

Eight Years Late, Better than Never

Now anti-Trump, veteran advisor and media figure Mark McKinnon can be seen saying (beginning at 3:30) Can we just put Liz Cheney on Mount R...