Morford: Thou shalt not shut down Kamala Harris
Morford: Thou shalt not shut down Kamala Harris
Throwin' shade, takin' names Photo: Alex Brandon, Associated Press
Old guard, meet the new guard
Twitter reacts to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) during the Senate Intelligence Committee questioning, where she was interrupted by Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and Richard Burr (R-NC).
Whether she likes it or not, whether she’s fully ready or willing to be promoted in this way or not, CA's own junior senator (and former attorney general) Kamala Harris is fast becoming one of the fiery, go-to saviors of the Left, a fast-rising star increasingly adept at taking on, with a sly grin and without so much as a flinch, the old white male loutishness of Trump’s toxic regime.
And it’s something to behold. Witness her questioning – and apparently easily flustering – poor, racist elf Jeff “I don’t recall” Sessions, the U.S. Attorney General and all-around incoherent Trump lackey, merely by asking him a couple simple, pointed questions – questioned pointed enough to earn her a scowling reprimand/shushing by not one, but two old white GOP males, Sen. Burr and Sen. McCain, before she could get a full answer from baffled little Beauregard.
It wasn’t so much the questioning that (again) proves Harris’ mettle – though that was certainly on fantastic display. It was what followed. Within moments of Burr and McCain shutting her down, her staff pounced. The rebuff instantly swarmed Twitter. It was all over social media. My own girlfriend, never much of political buff or one to watch CNN in the middle of the day, instantly texted me, asking if I was watching the Sessions hearing, if I saw how they just shut down Kamala. She was furious. “How the f--k did this happen to our government? It is outrageous to see the blatant lying and have no recourse.”
My girl, she is far from alone. Like millions of others, she's racing right past incensed. She is becoming an activist. She is becoming outspoken. She is becoming engaged, fearless, ready for a new progressive revolution. Unlike Hillary, who she feels was bogged down by megatons of political baggage and years of savage GOP sexism, she sees in Harris a kindred spirit for this (and the next) generation, one unburdened by cronyism or old rules. The power and reach of this cannot be understated.
(For the record, a nearly identical shushing incident happened last week, as Harris was pressing Rod Rosenstein on an equally simple yes-or-no question, which he was able to evade thanks to the scolding of, well, the same old, white male Republicans). Burr and McCain’s shutdown of Harris was, of course, instantly tied to Mitch McConnell’s infamous “nevertheless, she persisted” slur of Elizabeth Warren - who was, let us happily recall, reading a letter from Coretta Scott King aloud on the Senate floor, a letter that also, not so ironically, called out Sessions’ racist, milquetoast character. Top it off by noted Trump troll Jason Miller going on CNN and calling Harris “hysterical,” AKA the classic sexist slur from the '50s, used against any woman who dared speak for herself, and you’ve got a fine recipe for, well, for a serious new resurgence.
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As for Harris, well, as a young, whip-smart, mixed-race female from the most populous, progressive and economically powerful state in the union, Kamala is nothing short of Trump’s worst nightmare. And the good news is, increasingly, she’s not the only one.
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/article/Thou-shalt-not-shut-down-Kamala-Harris-11219609.php#photo-13044464
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