ELEGY: Candidate Vance broke a time-honored rule!

TUESDAY, JULY 30, 2024

Broadcaster Smith did not: Will Candidate Harris end up winning this year's election?

There's no way to be sure. On the one hand, she carries a lot of "baggage." On the other hand, she'll be running against Donald J. Trump.

Today, in his weekly Conversation with Gail Collins, Bret Stephens lays out a long list of reasons why he doesn't plan to vote for Candidate Harris.

He also won't be voting for Candidate Trump—but the possible pitfalls for Candidate Harris do go on and on. Midway through his lengthy list, the center-right Stephens found himself challenged by his center-left colleague:

Harris vs. Trump Is Taking Shape. And Then There’s Vance.

[...]

Gail: And when you’ve got a choice between a woman who you don’t agree with about taxes and spending versus a man who’s shown himself perfectly capable of trying to overthrow the government if he loses, the options are pretty obvious.

Bret: That was pretty much my reasoning when I cast my votes for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden: two liberal Democrats who nonetheless struck me as safe pairs of hands, particularly when it came to world affairs.

I just don’t have the same faith in Kamala Harris. She’s given no indication that she can run a campaign or an office competently, much less a country. She frequently speaks in inanities. Her contribution to fixing the border crisis was less than zero—in fact, she publicly denied there was a crisis. I doubt she strikes fear in the hearts of the tyrants in Tehran, Beijing or Moscow at a moment when all of those dictatorships are on the march.

That wasn't the start of his list of objections, nor had he reached the list's end. How many voters will see it this way? We have no idea.

Harris is a largely accidental candidate; her opposite number, Candidate Trump, is basically unelectable. If you squint and if you cover your ears, an elegy for our flailing nation's way of life may be dimly audible here.

Other voters may see it the way Stephens does; most other voters may not. But when it comes to the merits of Candidate JD Vance, Collins and Stephens seem to agree. 

Here's what the twin tyros said:

Gail: ...Speaking of vice presidents, am I right in feeling JD Vance has already become a political disaster area?

Bret: As in Dan Quayle with a brain or Sarah Palin with a beard? His job is to present himself as a smarter and more articulate version of Trump. So far, he’s just been a younger and meaner one. His stupid jibe against “childless cat ladies” may come back to haunt him on Nov. 5, not least among the 46 million American women who are childless. He would not fare well against [Senator Mark] Kelly in a debate.

The pair seem to agree about Candidate Vance. As they continued, they also agreed that Senator Kelly (D-AZ) would be a strong running mate for Harris.

Candidate Vance has been getting battered stem to stern in recent days. Thanks to this digital version of Hillbilly Elegy, we've been re-perusing his largely tedious, mammoth best-seller, and our judgment remains intact:

 Pity the mistreated child. Defeat the weirdly angry lost man.

That would be our own assessment. For the record, many neighbors and friends—fellow citizens all—disagree with our view.

Yesterday afternoon, we commented on Vance's latest attempt to describe the problem our nation faces thanks to its "childless cat ladies." He was interviewed—and he was challenged—on the Fox News Channel!

To review the carnage, you can just click here.

Trey Gowdy didn't seem to be thrilled with his party's candidate for vice president. His disapproval seemed to be quite clear.

That said, we want to be fair! Along the way, breaking the very first rule in the book, Candidate Vance could clearly be heard saying this—and yes, it's right there on the tape:

VANCE (7/28/24): ...If you look at the full context of what I said, it is very clear that the Democrats have tried to take this out of context and blow it out of proportion, which is what they always do, Trey, because they don't have an agenda to run on themselves.

And if you look at what the American people are most concerned about, Trey, it's not an out-of-context quip that I made three years ago. It's the fact that Kamala Harris, the border czar, opened the American southern border. It's the fact that the Democratic Party has become explicitly anti-family in some of their policies. In fact, you just heard Kamala Harris, in a surfaced clip recently, talk about how it was a bad idea to have kids because of climate change anxiety. 

So what I'm really trying to get at here, Trey, is that it's important for us to be pro-family as a country...

Believe it or not, that's what he actually said! Briefly, let's review:

We know of no reason to believe that Candidate Harris was ever in charge of establishing policy at the southern border. Presumably, that's what the term "border czar" will seem to suggest.

(Full disclosure, as an elegy sounds: Blue America's journalists simply aren't sharp enough to perform that fairly obvious translation of that catchy term.)

Presumably, Vice President Harris wasn't in charge of setting border policy. Also, that isn't what Harris actually said about having kids in that recently surfaced video clip.

Candidate Vance was wrong on those points in that, his response to Gowdy's initial challenge about his "cat ladies quip." When Gowdy challenged him a second time, his claims about what "the left" has been doing became even more absurd.

That said, credit where due—and yes, he actually said it! As he spoke with Gowdy that night, the candidate broke the very first rule in the book:

Appearing as the Republican nominee to serve as vice president, he referred to the other party—and when he did, he actually called it by its actual name:

"The Democratic Party has become explicitly anti-family in some of their policies." 

That claim strikes us as absurdly far-fetched. But he referred to the other party by its actual name! Democratic Party, he somewhat weirdly said!

What can explain this slip? It may have been his inexperience showing—it may have been the latest mistake by a novice candidate. It may have been a simple slip of the tongue, a nervous error committed in the face of an unexpected assault.

That said, the candidate had broken one of the basic rules in his adopted party's book. He had called the Democratic Party by its actual name! As a distant elegy has seemed to sound in the background of our nation's clownish non-discourse, everyone has known the rule:

Red America's official "thought leaders" aren't supposed to do that!

The prohibition against this behavior stretches back at least several decades. We don't know when this childish behavior got its start, but we can recall Chris Matthews, hosting Hardball, offering occasional complaints about this practice, at least two decades back.

In theory, no, it doesn't matter—it doesn't matter that these flyweights engage in this flyweight behavior.  But these people do engage in this flyweight behavior on a reliable, round-the-clock basis—and that explains the dilemma facing the Fox News Channel's Sandra Smith on Sunday, July 21.

We laid it out for you yesterday. There she sat, co-anchoring an hour-long, BREAKING NEWS program about President Biden's announcement that he was withdrawing from the White House campaign. 

Along the way, Smith was asked to read one part of the subsequent statement which was released by Vice President Kamala Harris. That's when the mandated childishness hit the fan,

Zounds! Part of Haris' written statement appeared right there on the Fox News Channel screen. Smith was now directed to read the words which appeared on the screen, creating a moment of truth.

A lesser figure might have panicked; Smith knew what to do. Below, you see what appeared on the screen—and you see the version Smith read:

As seen on the Fox News Channel's screen:
“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination... I will do everything in my power to unite the Democratic Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump."
             VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS

Those are the words which appeared on the screen. But when Smith was charged with reading those words, this is what she said:

As read by the Fox News Channel's Smith:
“I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination... I will do everything in my power to unite the Democrat Party—and unite our nation—to defeat Donald Trump."

She seemed to know that, by the rules of the game, she wasn't allowed to say it. By the stunningly childish rules of the game, she seemed to know that she isn't allowed even to read the other party's actual name—even as the name of that party sat right there on the screen!

In theory, no—it doesn't matter that this experienced Fox News anchor knew what she had to do. It doesn't matter that she did what she has learned to do through seventeen years of employment at this remarkably clownish "news channel."

It doesn't matter that she did what she did, but we almost thought we heard an elegy off in the distance as she engaged in this conduct. Beyond that, it seems to us that a much larger lesson may be lurking—a lesson about the American project, and even about we the self-satisfied denizens of our own Blue America.

Who is the world is Sandra Smith? Who in the word, at age 43, agrees to behave this way?

Due to their inquiring minds, our analysts wanted to know! They mentioned the death of sacred Troy, then quickly turned to matters which are a bit nearer at hand.

Sacred Troy must die, Hector said. His famous prophesy was famously uttered to Andromache, his generous wife.

(As Homer has recorded the scene, they delighted in their darling son as they spoke. Soon thereafter, when sacred Troy fell, their darling son was thrown to his death from their city's high walls.)

Has our own alleged culture already died? Are those of us, in Red and Blue America both, simply too unskilled, but also too childish, too dumbly tribal, to make this alleged experiment work?

Has our own alleged culture already died without anyone noticing—without anyone composing an elegy to memorialize its death? Were the producers of The Sixth Sense trying to tell us this?

The analysts wondered who this person could possibly be—the person who wouldn't even read the name of the other party.

She could be the world's nicest person, we said. But we gave them permission to Google.

Tomorrow: Last evening, impossibly stupid—but also, broadcast to millions