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Dispatch #87 White Lesbian Age 69 Considers the Decline and Likely Fall of VP Kamala Harris

  • Writer: Kathleen A. Maloy
    Kathleen A. Maloy
  • Dec 10, 2021
  • 5 min read
December 10th 2021

324 Days Since Inauguration of First Woman Vice-President
771 Days Until the 2024 Presidential Primaries Begin 

Faithful Readers of Dispatches from the War on Women!  More than 8 months have passed since I last opined, on April Fool’s Day of all days, that in three years we will see a woman running for US President again. I wondered how/whether the country would move to accept that a woman, i.e., VP Kamala Harris, can/should be President.  So, yeah, how’s the public coverage of our very first woman of color VP going?!


Well, let’s see, a few weeks ago “Kamala Harris inadvertently whipped up an online storm and left netizens divided after she bought cookware worth hundreds of dollars in Paris.” www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/internet-divided-over-cookware-kamala-harris-bought-in-paris/ar-AARdGnG?ocid=msedgntp. That this purchase involved $500 of personal money for pots to help her husband be a better cook didn’t temper the media coverage.


During this same period, media stories proliferated asserting that 1) VP Harris losing key staff due to her missteps and lack of focus, 2) Kamala bullies her staff, 3) Kamala refuses to prepare for her appearances and performs poorly, and 4) Kamala’s relationship with Biden and the White House has deteriorated. Headlines trumpet scandal and dysfunction in the office of the VP and wonder whether Harris might be the most unpopular VP in history. Wow! Online magazines carry Kamala’s picture with the caption that 60% of Americans don’t think she is qualified to be President.


YIKES! WTF?! Classic misogynist/racist take-down of a strong woman occupying a position never held by a woman or black person before?! Well, Faithful Readers, VP Kamala Harris is now under the bus instead of in the front of the bus.


Lowlights from 2021: The VP sent to Central America to ‘clean up’ border mess created by 40 years of American imperialism and colonialism that left this region a wasteland of drug cartels, blighted farmlands, gang terrorism in communities, corrupt politicians and extreme gender violence. The VP tasked with leading in the states on voting rights while the Democrats are complicit (Biden specifically) in letting voting rights legislation fail due to their filibuster filiality. And then the thankless trip to repair relations with France after US back-stabbing deal for nuclear submarines with Australia. Hmmmm.


Unfortunately, however, Kamala was in trouble almost immediately. Why so you might ask? Why indeed! The VP ran afoul of West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin.


On January 28th, in one of her first solo appearances, VP Harris participated in a radio interview on a major WV station to promote Biden’s pandemic relief plan. She noted:


 In West Virginia, one in seven families is describing their household as being hungry, one in six can’t pay their rent, and one in four small businesses are closing permanently or have already closed, so it’s a big issue in West Virginia and across the country,” Harris said. “And that’s why the president and I are offering the American Rescue Plan.” 


With a day, Manchin lets the White House know his displeasure because he was not given notice. Yup, the Democratic senator outraged that he wasn’t asked for permission to let the Democratic VP talk about the Democratic President’s plans. And the White House scurried to bend their knee publicly to Manchin as Biden needs all 50 Democratic senators. 


Here is a taste of the media coverage: 


'We need to work together': Manchin blasts Harris' TV hit on Covid relief   www.politico.com/news/2021/01/30/manchin-harris-covid-relief-464011

White House reached out to Manchin after Harris' interviews in West Virginia – www.cnn.com/2021/02/01/politics/joe-manchin-white-house-call/index.html


The last headline is particularly offensive because VP Harris never made a public comment in response to this bullying attack by Manchin. The White House focused on placating Manchin and offered no public support for Harris.  Lessons Learned for VP Harris and for the White House. 


Nonetheless, Manchin spent the rest of 2021 unilaterally torpedoing every element of Biden’s legislation designed to lift up poor and working-class families including multiple millions of children out of poverty.  That Kamala Harris ran into Manchin’s buzz saw created a particularly out-raging irony.  Manchin sports the classic white supremacist privileged male attitude that people are poor due to their lack of effort and so entitlements will simply encourage people to be lazy – these elitist bastards have always opposed entitlements with their favorite trope: fat black woman with 10 kids on welfare. So yeah Manichaean Manchin would be especially incensed about a black woman promoting a safety net to poor white West Virginians.  


Makes you wonder why the White House sent VP Harris to West Virginia in the first place.  


Let’s do recall West Virginia officials in 2016 gleefully and publicly called First Lady Michelle Obama an ape in high heels and experienced no adverse consequences. (Am I mean-spirited for my satisfaction that one of these officials was later convicted of FEMA fraud? https://abcnews.go.com/US/woman-called-michelle-obama-ape-heels-pleads-guilty/story?id=61142401.


So really, don’t bother to read reporting that is largely driven by one-note headlines and draws on the gossipy inside-the-beltway Washington Post article that all but writes off Harris as bullying, lazy, and unable to rise to the occasion. 


However, I do recommend the CNN analysis by Edward-Isaac Dovere and Jasmine Wright: “Exasperation and dysfunction: Inside Kamala Harris' frustrating start as vice president.” Dovere and Wright have penned a lengthy, in-depth and wide-ranging analysis that betrays no bias and identifies the job of vice-president as ill-defined and highly politicized – that is, not designed for the occupant to succeed.  Moreover, most of their sources believe that Harris is not being supported by the White House, and many sources assert that Harris is being set up to fail.


Dovere and Wright begin with this: 


Worn out by what they see as entrenched dysfunction and lack of focus, key West Wing aides have largely thrown up their hands at Vice President Kamala Harris and her staff -- deciding there simply isn't time to deal with them right now, especially at a moment when President Joe Biden faces quickly multiplying legislative and political concerns.


The exasperation runs both ways. Interviews with nearly three dozen former and current Harris aides, administration officials, Democratic operatives, donors and outside advisers -- who spoke extensively to CNN -- reveal a complex reality inside the White House. Many in the vice president's circle fume that she's not being adequately prepared or positioned, and instead is being sidelined. The vice president herself has told several confidants she feels constrained in what she's able to do politically. And those around her remain wary of even hinting at future political ambitions, with Biden's team highly attuned to signs of disloyalty, particularly from the vice president. www.cnn.com/2021/11/14/politics/kamala-harris-frustrating-start-vice-president/index.html


 The blueprint for throwing Kamala Harris under the bus is in plain sight.

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