CHAOS: When Anderson Cooper tried to ask...

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2024

...the candidate tried to answer: Sometimes, you just have to feel sorry for our political candidates.

Such a time occurred last night during CNN's Town Hall. Early on, Candidate Kamala Harris ran through a list of her policies, plans and proposals.

Anderson Cooper offered this sad attempt at a follow-up question: 

HARRIS (10/23/24): So that's why my plan, and it's a new approach, is about tax cuts for our small businesses so that they can invest in themselves and grow and in the process, invest in communities, invest in neighborhoods, and strengthen our economy overall.

So those are some examples. It's about a new approach, a new generation of leadership based on new ideas and, frankly, different experiences. I bring a whole set of different experiences to this job, and the way I think about it, than Joe Biden. 

COOPER: Some voters, though, might ask: You've been in the White House for four years. You were vice president, not the president. But why wasn't any of that done over the last four years?

We heard no gnashing of teeth from the candidate. If we had, we would have cheered.

In fairness, let's be fair! Cooper did include a qualifier: "You were vice president, not the president," the moderator thoughtfully said. 

Even so, that attempt at a follow-up strikes us as the world's dumbest possible question. 

Sad! The question is built on a framework which has ruled the roost, for the past several months, in the journalistic / intellectual rubber room known as the Fox News Channel. By some process of "inanity leak," the framework had now leeched over and had invaded CNN's Town Hall.

Anderson Cooper, please!  As is known by everyone except our nation's major journalists, the policies of an administration are set by American presidents, not by their vice presidents. 

This basic fact has long been understood. It helps explain why John Nance Garner once made a famous statement. In the passage shown below, the foremost authority explains:

John Nance Garner

[...]

Like most vice presidents in this era, Garner had little to do and little influence on the president's policies. He famously described the vice presidency as being "not worth a bucket of warm piss" (for many years, this quote was bowdlerized as "warm spit"). Historian Patrick Cox traces the possible origin of this quote to a 1960 conversation with Lyndon B. Johnson, who consulted Garner on John F. Kennedy's offer to run for vice president.

Like most vice presidents in this era? Presumably, the leading authority refers there to the era which still exists!

Vice presidents aren't in charge of policy! Is there someone who doesn't understand this point? People, we're just asking!

For the record, Garner was born in1868. He served as Franklin Roosevelt's vice president for eight years, up through 1941.

According to that leading authority, his assessment of the job of vice president has been widely quoted since 1960. Its meaning is widely understood—except by CNN's Cooper, along with a coffle of "journalist actors" on the Fox News Channel.

You'd think some things were so freaking obvious that even our millionaire TV stars would be able to understand them. The charade isn't performed that way at Fox—and last night, there was Cooper, adopting one of their standard frameworks!

By our reckoning, that was an unfortunate question. Politely, the candidate responded:

HARRIS (continuing directly): Well, there was a lot that was done, but there's more to do, Anderson. And—and I'm pointing out things that need to be done that haven't been done, but need to be done. And I'm not going to shy away from saying, "Hey, these are still problems that we need to fix."

In truth, a president seeking a second term might have said the same things! Mercifully, Cooper moved on at this juncture, having earned at least a half dozen "Fox News Brownie points."

That was an unfortunate moment from Cooper. A bit later on, he asked a question we would regard as obvious and plainly significant.

Under the circumstances, the question didn't have to be asked. But the question remains unanswered and unexplained, right to this very day. Last night, Cooper joined Bill Whitaker of 60 Minutes in asking the question again.

As you can see in the CNN transcript, the candidate had just responded to a question from a college student about the southern border. Perfectly sensibly, Cooper followed with this:

COOPER: Let me ask you about that. You're talking about the [border] bill that Donald Trump quashed in 2024. You talked about the bill he [presumably, President Biden] tried to get passed in 2021. That he wasn't able to get passed. 

2022, 2023, there were record border crossings. Your administration took a number, hundreds of executive actions. It didn't stem the flow. The numbers kept going up.

Finally, in 2024, just in June, three weeks before the last—the first presidential debate with Joe Biden, you instituted executive actions that had a dramatic impact, really shut down people crossing over. Why didn't your administration do that in 2022, 2023?

It's an obvious question—and it remains unanswered. Like Whitaker before him, Cooper was asking this:

Why didn't President Biden institute those executive actions during the first three years and five months of his administration? Why did he wait so long?

It's an obvious question! Sadly, you'll note that Cooper continued to throw gorilla dust with his references to "you" and "your administration"—references which continued to suggest that it was actually Candidate Harris who had somehow been in charge.

Simply put, many of our cable journalists just aren't any sharper than that! That said, the question is an obvious question—and it remains unanswered, even as we type.

As you can see from the CNN transcript, the candidate failed to answer Cooper's obvious question. As a result, Cooper posed the question again:

COOPER: But if it was that easy with that executive action, why not do it in 2022, 2023?

Once again, the candidate failed to answer! As she finished her second non-response, Cooper asked for the third time:

HARRIS: ...We have dealt with it such that, to your point, we now, as of today, as of our visit, have lower undocumented immigrants and illegal immigration than Trump when he left office. But we need a permanent solution and that requires bipartisan work.

COOPER: That's true. Do you wish you had done that? Do you wish you had done those executive orders in 2022, 2023?

The candidate evaded the question again. At this point, Cooper moved on to an extremely dumb question about one part of the bipartisan border bill, which he himself identified as a "compromise" bill.

(If you know the meaning of the word "compromise," Cooper's next question was very dumb. Also, though, the candidate's answer was poor.)

At this site, we've formulated a theory—more accurately, a speculation—about President Biden's border policy during those first three-plus years. All by itself, that unexplained border policy may hand Candidate Trump the November 5 election.

(You'll note that this was President Biden's policy. There is zero reason to assume that it was somehow Vice President Harris who was making these decisions.)

Why didn't President Biden take action sooner? At some point, we'll share the speculation we've formulated. For today, let's leave it at this as we continue to ponder the sorry state of what's left of the dying American discourse:

In our view, Candidate Harris is quite weak as an explainer, as major politicians go. 

We very much wish that wasn't the case, Also though, there's this:

The Fox News Channel is a fount of intellectual squalor. Last night, a leading framework from that Potemkin News Channel leaked over into the work performed on CNN.

A form of moral and intellectual chaos emerges from Fox on a daily basis. Consider one new example:

On one of that channel's primetime shows, Candidate Harris is now routinely referred to as "that broad." The angry pushback from incel culture is on full display there each night. 

(Eyes Wide Shut, come on down!)

A form of moral and intellectual chaos emerges from the Fox News Channel on a daily and nightly basis. The existence of social media only makes matters worse.

Last night, we got to see another small part of the problem. Simply put, we humans aren't gigantically bright, our big stars perhaps a bit less. 

Simply put, we humans aren't built for this type of work! In closing, Earth to Anderson Cooper:

It's true! Candidate Harris has "been in the White House for four years"—but she hasn't been in charge!

Everyone understands that fact. Everyone on the face of the earth except our millionaire stars!

Tomorrow: We're still trying to make our way back to what the public was told last weekend by The Man Who Screams, with much more to follow.