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media and media people national politics & policies partisanship

Something Pathological

Kamala Harris, Fox, interview, Bret Baier

Fox News’s interview with Kamala Harris itself made news. The betting markets had Ms. Harris tanking; we await post-​interview polls. Bret Baier did more than a competent job, pressing the Democratic candidate like Sam Donaldson used to press President Ronald Reagan. 

Harris came to the interview “fashionably” (strategically?) late, which added some frisson to the affair. But what stuck out to me was a repeated evasion, which to Kamala no doubt felt natural, but to this onlooker, anyway, seemed bizarre.

Trump.

When challenged about Biden Administration failures of policy, leadership, or efficacy, candidate Harris — in addition to insisting that she will lead in a totally new direction, mostly unspecified — kept on blaming, somehow, Donald Trump.

Republican Vice Presidential candidate J. D. Vance noted this, saying “something pathological is going on.”

That pathology is TDS: Trump Derangement Syndrome.

“You’ve been in office for three-​and-​a-​half years,” Baier challenged in the interview’s most memorable exchange, eliciting from the Democrat an immediate response: “And Donald Trump has been running for office since …” A stunned, incredulous Baier watched Harris rant on against Trump, declaring that “he is unfit to serve, that he is unstable, that he is dangerous, and that people are exhausted with someone who professes to be a leader who spends full time demeaning and engaging in personal grievances, and it being about him instead of the American people.”

This is her appeal to the middle, to non-​partisan voters: not for her or her policies, but against Trump.

Democrats need their devil. Without him could they win a national election?

And we should inquire whether the reverse is also true.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Watch the entire interview is here.

Illustration created with PicFinder and Firefly

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No Innocence Abroad

black pot, black kettle, pot calling the kettle black, Trump, Putin, Russia, interview, Super Bowl, killing, guilt, blame

After establishing, during the big Super Bowl day interview, that President Donald Trump respects Russian leader Vladimir Putin, Bill O’Reilly asked why. 

After all, the Fox News star challenged, “Putin’s a killer.”*

“We’ve got a lot of killers,” Trump replied. “What, you think our country’s so innocent?”

This disturbed just about everyone. On the left, it was more evidence of Russian influence. The right recoiled at Trump doing the leftist thing, equating our moral failings with the much worse failings of others.

“I don’t think there’s any equivalency between the way that the Russians conduct themselves,” insisted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑Ky), “and the way the United States does.” 

But is that really what Trump said? He merely pooh-​poohed America’s innocence.** 

And not without cause. His predecessor, after all, holds the world record (not Nobel-​worthy) in drone-​striking the innocent as well as the guilty in seven countries … none of which the U.S. has declared war upon. 

But wait: if “we’ve got killers” is the new acceptable-​in-​public truth, then why not “we’ve got currency manipulators”?

Yes, I’m shifting focus from east of Eastern Europe onto the Far East. According to a different Fox report, “Trump accused China and Japan of currency manipulation, saying they play ‘the devaluation market and we sit there like a bunch of dummies.’”

Despite incoherent objections from Japan***, let’s not forget the obvious: the U.S. manipulates currency, too. What do you think the Federal Reserve is for?

I mention this not to rub Trump’s nose in hypocrisy. It’s to establish an estoppel principle here.

How may we object when others do that which we do ourselves?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* The Russian State is asking for an apology from O’Reilly. Not for a retraction on the grounds of truth, mind you, but an apology. O’Reilly wryly balks.

** Which certainly doesn’t absolve Vladimir Putin of guilt.

*** Yoshihide Suga, a spokesperson for the Japanese Government, insists that “the aim of monetary policies that have pulled the yen lower is to spur inflation, not devalue the currency.” Nice distinction. Thanks.

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