What should Jewish voters REALLY know about Kamala Harris?
BY ABE KATSMAN
She is a historic choice for reasons other than just her sex and race: even in the party of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris is arguably the least-principled candidate in recent memory.
Column originally published in The Times of Israel
Israeli and Jewish-interest publications wasted no time in playing up the “Jewish” angle of Joe Biden’s “historic” choice for vice president, Senator Kamala Harris. Front page stories featured “what Jewish voters should know” about her. Seemingly all needed to kvell over her Jewish husband — a successful lawyer, no less! — Douglas Emhoff, who, it was noted excitedly, could become America’s first Jewish Second Husband! (Someone, evidently, seriously lowered the bar for Jewish cultural achievement.)
These puff-pieces went on, generally soft-pedaling troubling positions like her advocacy for the Iran nuclear deal—and for rejoining it—or her defense of Rep. Ilhan Omar following her inexcusably antisemitic trolling. Instead, they focused on Harris having once visited Israel, opposing threats to cut off U.S. aid to Israel if it doesn’t leave the West Bank, and on her supposedly being “more AIPAC than J Street.” Speaking of lowered standards, this really does place her on the “pro-Israel” side of the Democratic party.
But they neglect plenty that voters really should know about her. She is a historic choice, after all, but for reasons other than just her sex and race: more importantly, even in the party of Bill and Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris is arguably the least-principled candidate in recent memory.
That might matter less in a normal election year. But Joe Biden is at the top of the ticket, sadly declining mentally before our eyes. His “campaigning” consists of word salads, even with scripts right in front of him, delivered on-screen by Zoom from his basement. It’s weirdly starting to look like a cross between “Weekend at Bernie’s” and Max Headroom (minus the wit). Graphing the steady decay of his faculties, it appears he’s got about a 50-50 chance of breaking William Henry Harrison’s record for shortest presidency (31 days) when the 25th Amendment is inevitably invoked removing him from office for incapacity. How confident is anyone that he’ll be firmly in control on February 20, 2021? (Harrison, in fact, was the oldest president elected until Reagan; Biden, if elected, will smash the oldest-elected record by over seven years.)