Dunce-puffery onset

Mere hours following Joe Biden's withdrawal from 2024 White House competition, numerous online news sites ran a cloying piece that extolled the supposed virtues of possible Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris. 

Credited to AFP wire service, "Kamala Harris: Trailblazer Eyeing America's Last Glass Ceiling,"  was pep-rally praise for the progressive giggler. It read like a DNC promotional circular, or perhaps some unbalanced hard-sell propaganda from CNN.

The writer(s) who crafted the unsigned and disingenuous promotion chose to simply sweep away that Harris, as Biden's main associate, had to her credit thoroughly dismal job performance.

In the opening paragraph, she was hailed as Democrats' "best hope to stop Donald Trump's comeback." Not articulated was why toppling Trump should be desired; his America First reasoning had produced peace and prosperity before the Biden-Harris wrecking-ball came crashing along.

The cheerleading stressed Harris's various identity "firsts" -- Democrats are obsessed with box-checking -- and sang that she now stands "on the cusp of history." The vomitous paean lauded the vice-president for loyalism to Biden as "political vultures circled over his candidacy."

"The fact that Harris has blamed much of the criticism of her by Republicans on racism and sexism would likely make a win feel even more vindicating for her." Readers were thereby counseled that Harris-support was of a part with battle against such wrongs.

But her implied opposition to racially discriminatory practices was nowhere seen when she joined Joe Biden's 2020 campaign. Like several 1970s Democrat senators, he had inveighed against bussing to integrate schools. 

“Unless we do something about this, my children are going to grow up in a jungle, the jungle being a racial jungle with tensions having built so high that it is going to explode at some point!” Delaware Senator Biden thundered on a 1977 senate floor.

During a 2020 Democrat presidential debate, Harris recalled Biden's hostility as well as his senatorial companionship with fellow pro-segregation Democrats like erstwhile Klan leader Robert Byrd. That she subsequently allied herself with the rightly condemned Biden illustrated an appetite for power that exceeded claimed indignation.

The piece asserted Harris had constructed "an impressive CV," again underscoring identity strides. It noted her past position as California attorney general, though not her record of sending legions of black men to prison for marijuana-related offenses. (During a later interview, Harris laughingly conceded her own drug use.)

Her general fumbling was excused as endemic to "a job that has been known to flummox many office-holders."

At this point, weary of plowing through unmerited plaudits, I turned away. 

Expect similar press gushings in months ahead.