By Dave Andrusko

The way the major media go after pro-life President Trump makes a pack of hungry wolves look like vegans. If you’ve been around very long, you knew four things would be core components of the overwhelming preponderance of stories about pro-abortion Joe Biden’s decision to choose pro-abortion Sen. Kamala Harris to be his vice presidential running mate.
First, that it would be the greatest choice in the history of galaxy, rivaled only by Kennedy’s choice of Johnson and Obama’s selection of Joe Biden.
Second, all—all—criticism of Sen. Harris would be reflection of latent (if not blatant) racism, sexism, and whatever else “ism” they could pull off the shelf. Thus, when Harris, who is a militant, expansionary pro-abortionist, is called on this (or any of the other major issues where her position is way outside the mainstream), it’ll be (and has already) been dismissed out of hand. Even to raise her positions on the issues will be ruled inadmissible by the Media Elite.
Third, the team of Biden and Harris would begin by ignoring the press. I heard a clip last night. There had been a question or two (or an attempted question or two) and some assistant was urging them to leave—they just had to get going!
Even CBS News’ Kathryn Watson, who spends most of her day tweeting about how President Trump is toast, said yesterday
The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin added
Of course, that’s all for show. If tracking down Biden and Harris becomes the journalistic equivalent of “Where’s Waldo,?” it will be excused away as [fill in the blank].
Fourth and finally. Jack Shafer is Politico’s senior media writer. He’s been around forever and is one of the few media writers who actually criticizes the media’s behavior with intelligence and verve.
The headline for yesterday’s analysis was “The Media’s Sudden Crush on Kamala Harris: Last fall she crashed and burned, and the pundits had a million reasons why. Now she’s just the energy the Biden ticket needs. What changed?”
In case you forgot, “crashed and burned” is no exaggeration. Her campaign was disjointed, unfocused, a mish-mash of virtue-signaling, race-baiting, and policies that are, say we say, far to the Left of the mainstream. When she exited, the press couldn’t bash her thoroughly enough. Shafer writes, “As the Washington Post’s Paul Waldman wrote when Harris left the race, she never conveyed a convincing reason for running for the presidency outside of simply wanting the job.”
So, why is Sen. Harris just what Biden needed?
1. In addition to the favorable initial attention the new VP traditionally gets (unless you are a pro-life Republican and then the knives come out instantly), “Not since Franklin Roosevelt added Harry Truman to the ticket has a vice presidential pick had a better chance of becoming president than does Harris, something every political reporter will factor into his copy.”
2. The press is bored out of its collective skull. “The sound reporters are making is one of gratitude—for something new and different to write about other than two old guys throwing spitballs at each other.”
3. She’s been promoted. “Yesterday, Harris was just another overbaked politician. Today, she’s fresh as can be, and the press corps can’t stop salivating.”
4. But most of all (and this is truly a brilliant insight on Shafer’s part)
[P]olitical journalism resembles sports writing more than anybody cares to admit. If somebody gets beaten—or, like Harris, bails out before the voting even begins—the political journalists and sportswriters feel compelled to sift the results to explain how that end was so inevitable as to be predictable. Losers must be portrayed as losers, complete with all the failure analysis you can pack into a story. But when they stage a comeback, suddenly there’s a whole new backstory, drawing on the same evidence to explain the revival. Winners, even winners of a place on the bottom half of the ticket, must be presented as winners—at least until they lose, at which point all the original evidence can be reshuffled to explain the inevitability of their defeat.
For all the reasons Shafer cites, he can’t come to the conclusion that Sen. Harris is uniquely positioned to accomplish the Major Media’s #1 objective: defeat Donald Trump. Thus it won’t be until Biden and Harris lose that what is obvious to anyone who isn’t vehemently anti-Trump and a die-hard Democrat partisan. Sen. Harris is a deeply flawed candidate—for all the reasons Shafer lists and many more—who will serve the destabilizing purpose of pulling the hapless Biden even further and further away from where the America public is on public policy issues.
