Add the Washington Post to the outlets writing hit-pieces on Kamala Harris.
On Saturday, in an article headlined “A Kamala Harris staff exodus reignites questions about her leadership style – and her future ambitions,” the post makes Biden’s wildly unpopular VP sound less like Selena Meyer and more like Mommie Dearest.
Or, in this case, Kamommie Dearest.
The article is behind a paywall, but here’s a few pull-quotes:
Staffers who worked for Harris before she was vice president said one consistent problem was that Harris would refuse to wade into briefing materials prepared by staff members, then berate employees when she appeared unprepared.
Yeah, I have no problem believing that.
And given how frequently Kamala appears unprepared, there must be a hell of a lot of berating going on.
Back in November, in my column “Kamala’s Cringe Show Hits the Road,” I included this quote from Jesse Kelly:
I make a lot of jokes about Dome, but the honest truth is she’s just an extremely insecure person. That’s why she laughs all the time when asked hard questions. It’s why she does cringe stuff like this. It’s why her burps taste like Willie Brown. A very insecure person.
As is often the case, it looks like Jesse hit the nail on the head. Check out this quote in the Washington Post’s article:
“It’s clear that you’re not working with somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work,” one former staffer said. “With Kamala you have to put up with a constant amount of soul-destroying criticism and also her own lack of confidence. So you’re constantly sort of propping up a bully and it’s not really clear why.” [Emphasis Dianny’s]
See what I mean? She’s Kamommie Dearest.
Speaking of hitting the nail on the head, note the first sentence of that quote.
Way back in March, in my column “Sacagawea’s Baby,” I wrote:
The woman can’t get anywhere without someone else carrying her. Her face-plant Presidential campaign is proof of that. Nothing about Kamala’s rise has been self-propelled. Nothing. From Willie Brown to Joe Biden, Kamala has been riding on the backs of others for over 25 years.
So it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Kamala isn’t “somebody who is willing to do the prep and the work.”
You have to wonder who gave news outlets the go-ahead to pile on all these hit-pieces. Because there is no way in hell this is happening organically.
Back when the hit-pieces started this summer, I pointed out that it is highly unlikely this Kamala “whisper campaign” would be happening at all unless people inside Team Biden gave it the go-ahead.
Even the Axios article that had Biden people condemning the whisper campaign ended up being one more hit-piece in a string of hit-pieces:
Yet many Democrats, including some current senior administration officials, are concerned she could not defeat whomever the Republican Party puts up — even if it were Donald Trump.
I said at the time that with these people, leaks are strategic. It was that way during the Obama administration and, since most of the Biden people were Obama people, it’s continuing today.
Sure, they’ll go on the record to defend Kamommie Dearest, telling reporters what a valuable member of the team she is. But the same people defending Kamala on the record are most definitely giving the go-ahead to “anonymous sources” to dish dirt about her to the press.
One person who did speak on the record to the Washington Post was Gil Duran. Duran was a former aide to Harris in 2013 who quit after only five months on the job. He told the Post Kamala is repeating “the same old destructive patterns,” asking “Who are the next trained people you’re going to bring in and burn through and then have [them] pretend they’re retiring for positive reasons?”
It’s been fascinating to watch the genesis of these Kamala hit-pieces. The Politico piece from late June blamed the dysfunction and frustration, not on Kamala herself, but her office staff. The CNN piece from a couple of weeks ago also avoided directly naming Kamala as the cause of the dysfunction. But this Washington Post article lays the blame directly at the feet of Kamommie Dearest.
In the last month, four staffers have bailed on the insecure bully – including her communications director Ashley Etienne and her chief spokeswoman, the odious Symone Sanders. And while the White House tries to pass it off as totally normal for people to leave, these hit-pieces make it clear that, as far as the Veep’s office is concerned, there is more to it than the typical staff turnover.
If you want my opinion, for what it’s worth, I think part of it might be that Team Biden is suffering from buyer’s remorse. They realized too late that Kamala Harris was a bad choice for Joe’s running mate.
But there’s more to it than that.
These guys need a scapegoat.
Joe Biden is a disaster. And because the Biden people are incapable of self-reflection, they’ve convinced themselves that Kamala is the one who is dragging Joe down.
She isn’t. But admitting that Joe Biden is the cause of his own failures is impossible for these people. They’ve made an artform out of blaming others for their incompetence.
Fortunately for them, Kamommie Dearest is so universally disliked, she makes the perfect scapegoat.