News outlets this week claim Joe Biden’s recently announced running mate, ultra-liberal Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris of California, is a moderate whose record on issues such as healthcare and law enforcement has been relatively “centrist.”
If Harris is a “moderate” and a “centrist,” then those words no longer mean anything.
“Breaking News: Sen. Kamala Harris of California is Joe Biden’s pick for vice president. A pragmatic moderate, she is the first Black woman on a major party ticket,” the New York Times announced on social media.
And just to be clear: This absurd descriptor is not relegated to just the New York Times’s social media feed. The report that accompanied the newspaper’s announcement repeated the statement.
“A pragmatic moderate who spent most of her career as a prosecutor, Ms. Harris was seen throughout the vice-presidential search as among the safest choices available to Mr. Biden,” reads the New York Times’s report on Biden’s vice presidential announcement.
It adds, “She has been a reliable ally of the Democratic establishment, with flexible policy priorities that largely mirror Mr. Biden’s, and her supporters argued that she could reinforce Mr. Biden’s appeal to Black voters and women without stirring particularly vehement opposition on the right or left.”
The Associated Press reported elsewhere on Tuesday, “In adding Harris to the ticket, he can point to her relatively centrist record on issues such as health care and her background in law enforcement in the nation’s largest state.”
“Picking Harris, Biden puts centrist stamp on Democrats’ future,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
The Economist alleged at the same time that, “Kamala Harris is a natural centrist who combines the authority of a prosecutor with the enthusiasm of a skilful retail politician.”
For the record, Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota is a moderate with a record of holding relatively centrist positions. Harris is no Klobuchar.
Harris’s track record as a “moderate” and a “centrist” includes supporting late-term abortion, co-sponsoring both “Medicare for all” and the Green New Deal, and calling for repeals of tax cuts. The senator even tried to impose a religious litmus test on Catholic judicial nominees. And this is to say nothing of Harris’s long record of prosecutorial abuses.
If Biden’s running mate is a “moderate” and a “centrist,” I would hate to see what the New York Times, the Associated Press, the Los Angeles Times, the Economist, and others consider “liberal.”
