Something suddenly struck me as I tracked all the finger-pointing and blame-shifting over Kamala Harris losing badly to Donald Trump.
As we watched her 107-day campaign, most of the coverage was absolutely glowing, as she was depicted as an inspiring trailblazer who would unify the country.
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But about five minutes after Donald Trump was declared president-elect, a very different portrait emerged.
Harris had run an awful campaign, making all sorts of missteps and blunders. She hadn’t done this, that and the other thing. She wasn’t up to the challenge. She couldn’t meet the moment.
Now they tell us?
A side-by-side of Vice President Kamala Harris and President-elect Donald Trump. (AP Images)
Doesn’t this suggest that the journalists, commentators and analysts were covering for her? That they knew the vice president was faltering, flubbing and failing, and weren’t being straight about it?
Well, here’s what that brings to mind.
For most of his term, President Biden was portrayed as a competent chief executive, maybe lacking pizazz, but more than capable of getting things done, whether you liked his policies or not.
Some age-related stories surfaced earlier this year, but both White House officials and those covering Biden assured readers and viewers that he was, in one phrase,
“sharp as a tack.”
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And then came the debate. Boom! The country saw the president struggling to form coherent sentences against Trump, and he would soon be pressured out of the race.
At that point, many media figures said sure, they had seen Biden’s mental acuity decline, and yes, he had often been hidden from them, but wasn’t it obvious? A few said White House officials had told them as long as two years earlier that there was no way Biden was capable of running for reelection. But of course that was off the record.
Vice President Kamala Harris gestures as she delivers a concession speech for the 2024 presidential election, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024, on the campus of Howard University in Washington. (AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough)
In short, even as the president was looking confused or turning the wrong way, much of the press covered for him.
And you wonder why the media’s credibility ratings are in the toilet.
In the case of Harris, just as in the case of Biden, many journalists obscured the harsh reality of their problems until it was no longer in their interest to do so.
We’re getting a major dose of this because of all the sniping between the Harris and Biden camps.
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“Democrats are directing their rage over losing the presidential race at Joe Biden, who they blame for setting up Kamala Harris for failure by not dropping out sooner,” Politico reports.
“They say his advancing age, questions over his mental acuity and deep unpopularity put Democrats at a sharp disadvantage. They are livid that they were forced to embrace a candidate who voters had made clear they did not want — and then stayed in the race long after it was clear he couldn’t win.”
On the same site, columnist Jonathan Martin says “the Biden sympathizers want to pin her loss on, well, her. And the Harris defenders believe Biden’s undeniably at fault for creating the forbidding political environment she proved unable to overcome.
Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives to speak during an election night event at the Palm Beach Convention Center on November 06, 2024 in West Palm Beach, Florida. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“How can Harris’s defenders grumble about being dragged down by Biden when she could not find one substantive policy issue on which to break from the unpopular incumbent?”
What’s more, “where was the daring? There was no full-throated attempt at defensive politics and reassuring the country she’d govern from the center and reject extremists in both parties…If the other side assails you as a liberal without any clear and sustained response, well, voters will believe the attacks. Given the scale of difficulty she faced — and, yes, how bad that initial, internal polling was — why not take some risks?”
Now there were some suggestions, including from me, that Harris was being too cautious and sticking to talking points. I argued from the day she passed over Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro that Tim Walz would do nothing for the ticket; now many pundits are simply stating that as fact.
One exception to the wait-till-it’s-over approach is this mid-October piece in Axios:
“Many senior Biden aides remain wounded by the president being pushed out of his reelection bid and are still adjusting to being in a supportive role on the campaign trail…Some on the Harris team say that top White House aides aren’t sufficiently coordinating Biden’s messaging and schedule to align with what’s best for the vice president’s campaign.”
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The media have plenty to answer for in the wake of this election, including how they underestimated Trump’s chances and appeal to voters, and failed to grasp why Harris’ party seemed out of touch to many in the working class.
But painting a rosy scenario when things were actually dark for Harris – even if there’s nothing she could have done to stop the Trump juggernaut – ranks right up there.