The New York Times turns on Kamala! As the liberal newspaper runs a string of brutal op-eds slamming Harris as 'weak', 'a phony' and 'ignorant', is her 'Brat summer' finally over?
By Martha Williams
Daily Mail
Aug 27, 2024
Their print presses and TV networks have been trying to paper over Harris's past record as the most unpopular Vice President in American history. The New York Times was among the first to suddenly change tack.
There are few cheerleaders more reliable than Kamala Harris's friends in the liberal media.
Ever since President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 election race last month, their print presses and TV networks have put in a hard shift trying to paper over Harris's past record as the most unpopular Vice President in American history.
To read and listen to their florid praise is to believe that Harris is already a shoo-in for president – and not an 11th hour replacement as Democratic nominee.
That was until her lackluster Thursday night speech at last week's Democratic National Convention – which appears to have halted the torrent of feel-good fangirling.
The reliably liberal New York Times was among the first to suddenly change tack on Friday, taking aim at what many perceive to be Harris's fatal lack of clear policy with a brutal headline that read: 'Joy Is Not a Strategy'.
In a sour commentary, NYT Deputy Opinion Editor Patrick Healy said he'd 'cringed' when former president Bill Clinton took the convention stage on Tuesday to claim that Harris would be 'the president of joy'.
How's that going to help the millions of Americans whose livelihoods are now at stake, Healey asked? And why has Harris failed to conduct a single interview or serious press conference since Biden stepped aside last month?
'Ultimately, she needs more voters in the swing states to trust her to handle the economy better than her opponent… Harris can't coast on "joy",' he concluded witheringly.
But worse was to come from the Times.
On Monday, the newspaper published a guest essay titled 'Trump can win on character', by conservative commentator Rich Lowry.
Pulling no punches, Lowry wrote that Harris is 'weak and a phony and doesn't truly care about the country or the middle class.'
Lowry attacked Harris's record as Vice President, namely her failure to 'secure the border or to address inflation'.
'She doesn't care if her tax policies will destroy jobs. She has been part of an administration that has seen real wages stagnate while minimizing the problem because the party line matters to her more than economic reality for working Americans,' he added.
Of course, such critiques aren't uncommon in conservative circles – but for such harsh words to appear in the NYT will no doubt be seen as a warning shot by Harris's team.
Another Times guest essay, written by veteran financial journalist Roger Lowenstein and published on Tuesday, took further aim at Harris's economic policy.
In the article – which, in fairness, also criticized Donald Trump's position on import tariffs as 'nonsensical' – Lowenstein slammed Harris as 'censorious and vague' in her plan to unveil communist-style 'price controls' on supermarkets.
'Forget that her proposal addresses a problem that no longer exists… More dismaying was her seeming ignorance that price controls, almost without exception, have led to shortages, supply chain disruptions and eventually higher prices,' he wrote.
And it's not just the Times.
Indeed, a sense of unease with Harris now appears to be creeping across the commentariat, with the authoritative Wall Street Journal and left-leaning The Hill adding to the disquiet.
'Are You Willing to Pay $5 Trillion for Kamala Vibes?' asked senior commentator James Freeman in the WSJ on Friday.
Freeman argued Harris has damaged the economy during her time as VP, not least by supporting Biden's multi-billion-dollar hike in government spending during the COVID crisis.
'She deserves more than her share of the blame for providing the crucial tie-breaking Senate votes for the spending schemes that fueled inflation,' he wrote. 'And now she's promising to impose destructive new tax hikes on our slow-growth economy.'
Since Biden dropped out of the 2024 election race, liberal media have put in a hard shift trying to paper over Harris's past record as the most unpopular Vice President in American history.
Donald Trump has long complained about US media bias, blaming it for the long 'honeymoon' enjoyed by Harris ever since Biden dramatically quit the presidential race.
Meanwhile, in Friday's episode of the Journal's popular daily political podcast 'Potomac Watch', former speechwriter to George W. Bush, Bill McGurn, described Harris's DNC speech as 'tired'.
Journal commentator Kim Strassel, meanwhile, chipped in to criticize Harris's apparent lack of policy.
'I have no doubt that the Kamala campaign would be absolutely thrilled to have you say, 'I have no idea what any of that means', she joked. 'That's their campaign strategy, to make sure that nobody has any idea about what she is actually going to do.'
Trump has long complained about US media bias, blaming it for the long 'honeymoon' enjoyed by Harris ever since Biden dramatically quit the presidential race.
But it's not only Republicans who have been troubled by the coverage.
Take this solar-plexus blow from The Hill website – a favorite of the DC political set – which, in the hours immediately after Harris's Thursday speech, gave space to conservative writer Derek Hunter to slam Harris as 'an empty pantsuit, basking in the glow of positive media coverage and unburdened by accountability'.
Hunter pointed out that Harris has been elected to her new role by precisely no one.
'She is the first nominee of either party who did not have to secure a single delegate or a single vote in the primaries,' he wrote. 'She is "historic" in that it is highly unlikely that she could have secured that nomination had there been any sort of competition for the job.'
Hunter's broadside is not the first time The Hill has been critical of Harris.
Opinion contributor Merrill Matthews wrote earlier this month that 'we don't actually know what "Kamalanomics" is,' adding that 'the Veep has been more focused on offering platitudes with attitude.'
'So far, her campaign website has no policy proposals, so that's no help. But you can buy a Harris-Walz hat the media have been effusing over,' he said.
Gerard Baker, a former Editor-in-Chief of the WSJ, has reached a similar conclusion.
Writing in The Times of London on the eve of the DNC, Baker said that Harris was 'aiming to pull off an electoral victory on a platform so light and vapid it might have been floated aloft on clouds of hype.'
'She has been assisted in this of course by a client media that, instead of doing its traditional job of scrutinising a candidate and testing her aptitude and ideas, has for the most part simply joined in the fun.'
But, as that 'client media' now begins to ask questions, it seems the Harris honeymoon might have run its course – and there are still 69 days to go until the election.\
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