Kamala Harris Demonstrates the Taranto Principle

This is what happens when you hide from serious journalism your whole life, or put another way, what unserious journalists do to a political party they favor.

Blame mainstream journalism for Kamala Harris. Or Joe Biden. If it weren’t for the media’s fawning reportage for Democrats and their relentless, vicious, scheming attacks on Republicans, the Democrats would have a better game. Or they’d at least have better candidates.

This is the year 2024, an election year where we choose who will occupy the highest office of the most powerful country on the planet - the single person who will command the world’s most powerful military, the world’s largest economy (at $23 trillion), in a nation with 330 million citizens. This isn’t Junior Class President. It’s the Oval Office - the Resolute desk. Air Force One. You’d be right in thinking that only the most meritorious, serious and accomplished candidates - with a firm, clear vision for our future - should survive the screening process to receive the ballot endorsement of either of our two major political parties.

But that is not the case. At least not for the Democrats.

Back in February of this year I wrote about the scarcity of talent on the Democrat bench, resulting from The Taranto Principle. The gist is: among major media outlets, Democrats have it embarrassingly too easy; Republicans have it far too hard. This has resulted in untested, lackluster Democrat candidates who cannot articulate the most fundamental policy understanding - and Republicans who, like sports teams training “at altitude” all year, field incredible talent.

The Taranto Principle postulates that eventually Democrats will be faced with genuine challenges, and when they do, having not been tested previously, fail miserably and embarrassingly. This accounts for Joe Biden’s presidency. From the very first day, insanely throwing open our borders and instigating and enabling the largest mass migration in history. The disastrous, deadly and precipitous withdrawal from Afghanistan that signaled America won’t honor our security commitments, even to our own citizens. The profligate trillion dollar America Rescue Plan that triggered the highest inflation in 50 years. The intentional shutting down of America’s energy industry, sending energy prices skyrocketing while enabling Russian and Iranian belligerence. The absurdly named, trillion dollar Inflation Reduction Act that further accelerated inflation. And the list goes on. Whatever policy “achievement” Joe Biden claims has been an unmitigated disaster. This is explained by a fawning media that served as Biden’s personal Praetorian Guard throughout his presidency.

It also explains what happened to Kamala Harris in her interview with Bret Baier last night on Fox News.

One might reasonably ask, “what was she thinking going on Fox News for a real interview?!?” The answer is, desperation. Faced with a collapse in her polling and the very real prospect that she cannot win this election, she went with a Hail Mary.

I don’t know how she thought this would turn out. Perhaps she thought she’d get a good anti-Trump zinger in there that could dominate the next news cycle. News reports indicate this was her idea - and I can see that. Her respect for real journalism is so low and her understanding so shallow that she probably thought she’d go in there and “girl-boss” Baier. Perhaps she’d heard about how tough Baier had been on Trump in his interview, and that she had possibly another softball offering. She’s an imbecile if she thought that - Baier is hard on everybody. He’s one of the toughest interviews in all of cable news.

Baier earned a lot of enmity from conservatives for his interview of Trump.

From the outset, Harris demonstrated “closed” body language - arms crossed over her lap, legs crossed, leaned as far back from Baier as possible. This is classic defiance posture - like your teenage son when you ask him to sit down and answer a few questions about what happened last night. Harris then proceeded to answer as any teenage son would - evasive, melodramatic, angry, defiant and obfuscating. She said “Trump” 21 times in 26 minutes, casting the blame on him for every failure of the administration where she is currently the sitting vice president.

This was not a good look for a prospective leader of the free world. The real world is filled with much tougher characters than Bret Baier. And they don’t go for nonsensical answers, like “You know what I’m talking about” when even she doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

This is the result of the incestuous alliance between Democrats and the mainstream media protective bubble. It’s what happens when candidates have spent their whole public lives sheltered from reality.

Bret Baier did the nation a service last night. He did his job.