JD FOSTER: Harris Charges Harris, Among Others, With ‘Recklessness’

You knew it had to happen, but former Vice-President Kamala Harris came out with her book. Why, only God and her financial advisor can say. If it was to whitewash her cackling history of bad judgment, then the book at least continues a pattern.

Yet in her book she does say one thing of great importance and with which nearly all Americans regardless of political persuasion can agree. “Recklessness” allowed Joe Biden to make the decision to run for re-election. It was reckless for the Democrats and reckless for the country in the event this enfeebled old guy won.

But allowed to run he was, for a long time. Harris’ observing this almost eludes the critical question – allowed by whom? Almost.

For starters, Harris was guilty of recklessness. She knew Biden’s true state, that he wasn’t fit to be president let alone to be re-elected same.

One could say in her defense that she was trapped by her position. She agreed to join Team Biden when she became his running mate in 2020, and loyalty has its price.

Yet, she also took an oath, and she wanted to be president. Her oath and her desire demanded she speak up, to Biden and the White House cabal and, if necessary, publicly. She recklessly ducked, confirming she should never be president.

But she wasn’t alone. The legacy media were willing participants in recklessness. Many knew. All should have known and should have spoken out. Few did.

After the fact, the legacy media’s reckless enabler-in-chief, Jake Tapper, felt so exposed he wrote a book offering up his own gallon of whitewash. Yet we see Tapper and his side-kick Dana Bash among others still appearing regularly on CNN, confirming that CNN’s few viewers aren’t liberals or conservatives but self-select as among those who prefer to be misinformed.

Few members of Congress had any personal contact with Biden in his later years as his staff kept him mostly safely cocooned. Their guilt at embracing the recklessness is limited, but so, too, is their absolution as even they could see the many occasions when Biden embarrassed himself and the nation publicly, mouth agape, staring into the distance, or wandering off.

Democratic Leaders Sen. Chuck Schumer and Congressman Hakeem Jeffries knew the truth, but they stuck their heads in the sand. Whatever private conversations they had with Biden, it wasn’t enough. They needed to do much more. They didn’t.

A very few stood up against the recklessness, the first of whom, Texas Democrat Congressman Lloyd Doggett has been shouldered out of running for re-election. That says a lot about whether the party has learned any lessons. Hint: It hasn’t.

Yet the bulk of the blame rests with the two people who could have stopped Biden early and maybe even have given the Democrats a chance against the mighty Trump. Those two individuals, the party’s puppet-masters, are former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former President Barack Obama.

To be sure, Clinton’s and Obama’s relationships with Biden are not so cordial they could have, singly or together, convinced him early on to cede the stage, not Scranton stubborn Joe.

But they could have starved him of the mother’s milk of politics – campaign cash. Directly and through their favored proxies like David Axelrod, Clinton and Obama could have told the big Democratic donors to close their checkbooks to Biden.

Biden would have known immediately. He would likely have thrown a tantrum. And then, facing facts, he would have been forced out.

Obama and Clinton held back. Of all those guilty of recklessness, they stand foremost. Democrats might want to think about that.

JD Foster is the former chief economist at the Office of Management and Budget and former chief economist and senior vice president at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. He now resides in relative freedom in the hills of Idaho.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.