She's just not that in to you
It’s been a whirlwind for Kamala Harris since Joe Biden announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race on July 21. First she had to secure Democratic support for the nomination, create her own staff, raise money and volunteers, pick a running mate, campaign and prepare for the August 19 start of the convention.
Funny, she somehow didn’t manage to find time to sit down (or stand up) with the media for a grilling.
“Trump is holding a presser today, we interviewed him last week and Vance yesterday and Vance is taking open press questions. Time’s just about up on Harris to avoid this becoming a thing.”
And it turns out Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin tweeted without realizing Harris has been speaking, off the record, with reporters on her plane.
I’m a political reporter to my bones but the idea that anyone owes journalists regular availabilities is ludicrous. Politicians have a lot of ways to get their message out, formal press sit-downs or news conferences being just one. So is speaking directly to voters.
Perhaps the best argument in favor of regular sessions though is that it gives the political press corps something else to do besides following opposition research leaks like Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff’s affair during his first marriage or the swift-boating of 24-year National Guard veteran Walz by a Marine whose Iraq service consisted largely of writing his unit’s newsletter.
Or covering Trump’s 75-minute Mar-a-Lago grievance session, where he repeated his usual litany of lies, half-truths, race- and Jew-baiting, a press conference held no doubt because he was unhappy over the spotlight shifting away from him and on to Harris and Walz.
Among the lowlights was this moldy-oldie, except instead of referring to his inaugural he was claiming a quarter million people turned out to support his efforts to overturn the government on January 6:
“Nobody’s spoken to crowds bigger than me,” Mr. Trump said. “If you look at Martin Luther King, when he did his speech, his great speech, and you look at ours — same real estate, same everything, same number of people, if not — we had more.”
To be fair, all political campaigns feed reporters “oppo'“ research. But the first rule of thumb is to follow the guidance offered by the late City News Bureau in Chicago:
“If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”
Happily, unlike the attack unleashed on John Kerry in 2004 by Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth architect and current Trump campaign manager Chris LaCivita, reporters did check this one out.
But I’m still waiting for reporters to clamor for the medical facts and details surrounding the ear wound Trump suffered in the attempted assassination beyond the say so of Admiral, er, Captain Ronnie Jackson.
With at least the same fervor as they did with Jackson’s seemingly-factless asssertion to the New York Post that a Parkinson’s Disease expert visited Biden eight times in the White House.
Then there’s the question of a presidential candidate’s age and cognition, a subject apparently dropped since Biden left the race.
Thankfully, Stat, a website focusing on health and science, has tried to break through the word salads emanting from Trump’s mouth:
“Several [experts] noticed Trump’s 2024 speeches included more short sentences, confused word order, and repetition, alongside extended digressions such as Trump’s comments on Biden and Cary Grant, or in another speech, comments on banking abruptly giving way to Trump lamenting the cost of electric cars.
These could be attributed to a variety of possible causes, they said, some benign and others more worrisome. They include mood changes, a desire to appeal to certain audiences, natural aging, or the beginnings of a cognitive condition like Alzheimer’s disease.”
Maybe we should show some more sympathy to the Hermit of Mar-a-Lago. Like Prince Humperdinck, he has a lot going on:
… [Y]ou know how much I love watching you work. But I've got my country's 500th anniversary to plan, my wedding to arrange, my wife to murder, and Guilder to frame for it. I'm swamped.”