Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden might not have picked a full-throated supporter of communist mass-murderer Fidel Castro (meaning Representative Karen Bass) to join him in his last run for the White House.
But he did pick a woman who did everything but call him a racist and said she believes the women who say Biden molested them.
Now Harris can spend the next 12 weeks explaining why she would run with a man who tried to stop busing, was quite friendly with Southern “segregationists,” and can’t keep his hands off the ladies.
Race Card
Harris flung down the race card during the second Democrat presidential debate last June.
As is his wont, Biden had gaffed when he went off script and tried to explain how senators of disparate views got along amicably in the days when Biden first landed in Washington. He discussed “civility,” and said he and such Southern stalwarts as Mississippi’s James Eastland and Georgia’s Herman Talmadge “got things done.”
Before that, CNN had disinterred letters he wrote to Eastland to stop forced busing.
Harris didn’t miss her chance.
Of course, she allowed that she didn’t think Biden was a racist, but she did everything but call him a racist by implying he would have kept her out of an integrated school because he opposed busing.
“Growing up, my sister and I had to deal with the neighbor who told us her parents [said she] couldn’t play with us because she — because we were black,” she claimed:
And I’m going to now direct this at Vice President Biden, I do not believe you are a racist….
But I also believe, and it’s personal — and I was actually very — it was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and career on the segregation of race in this country. And it was not only that, but you also worked with them to oppose busing.
And, you know, 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.
Biden mumbled a non-answer.
It was preposterous, but Harris briefly jumped in the polls ahead of her rivals. The boost didn’t last, and she dropped out of the race in December.
“I Believe Them”
But Harris was still in the race when she declared that she believed the women who accused Biden of inappropriate touching and fetishistic sniffing.
Indeed, the sudden eruption of accusations suggested Biden might be finished, particularly with detailed accounts such as this one from Nevada Democrat Lucy Flores:
I felt him get closer to me from behind. He leaned further in and inhaled my hair. I was mortified. I thought to myself, “I didn’t wash my hair today and the vice-president of the United States is smelling it…. Why is the vice-president of the United States smelling my hair?” He proceeded to plant a big slow kiss on the back of my head. My brain couldn’t process what was happening. I was embarrassed. I was shocked. I was confused…. I couldn’t move and I couldn’t say anything. I wanted nothing more than to get Biden away from me. My name was called and I was never happier to get on stage in front of an audience.
Multiple videos of Biden’s hands-on approach to politics, including some creepy shots of him touching little girls, appeared on YouTube.
Said Harris, “I believe them, and I respect them being able to tell their story and having the courage to do it.”
Maybe she did, but after Harris surfaced as a possible vice-presidential pick, she suddenly lost faith in the #MeToo Democrat women.
When former Biden staffer Tara Reade surfaced in March and leveled a detailed charge of sexual assault, which multiple friends and acqauintances corroborated, Harris — like other top Democrat women — fell silent.
Reade “has a right to tell her story,” Harris said, but the Biden she knew has “been a lifelong fighter, in terms of stopping violence against women.”
Reade regardless, Harris would be “honored to serve” as Biden’s second-in-command, she said.
During an interview, Reade told TV talker Megyn Kelly that Harris’ office ignored a plea for help.
“Kamala Harris is my representative, so I tried to reach out to her in particular for help, like I wanted to get a safe place to tell what happened,” Reade said. “And I didn’t get a response. So I kept, again, trying to get it out there.”
Harris’ office claims to have no record of any such request.
Photo: AP Images
R. Cort Kirkwood is a long-time contributor to The New American and a former newspaper editor.
