It's pathetic that the public had to wait more than 5 weeks for an interview with the Democratic Party presidential nominee. It's also frustrating that she went to CNN, which has such a strong bias in her favor and against Donald Trump.
Having said that, I though Dana Bash's questions were (mostly) good, though inadequate, and that the interview gave viewers a fairly good look at both the strengths and the weaknesses of the Harris-Walz ticket, especially the latter.
Harris has no sense of direction. Asked what she would do first as president, she could not give a straight answer. Asked why her policy positions had apparently shifted since she ran for president in 2019, she could not give an explanation.
That said, she has a good sense of the cultural direction of the country -- at least as Democrats want to define it. When Bash invited her to go off on Trump on the topic of race, Harris made a show of holding back, which was clever.
Tim Walz is basically useless. He brings a large body and a coach personality to the ticket. He doesn't add anything. Physically, he is so much larger than Harris (or appeared so) that he makes her look less presidential, at least on TV.
I think the interview was good for Harris, in that she can now say she's done one. I think it was bad for her, in that she looked indecisive. As I explained in my Breitbart column this week, Harris offers "consensus" without leadership. Weak.
This week’s portion launches the great story of Abraham, who is told to leave everything of his life behind — except his immediate family — and to leave for “the Land that I shall show you.”
There’s something interesting in the fact that Abraham is told to leave his father’s house, as if breaking away from his father’s life — but his father, in fact, began the journey, moving from Ur to Haran (in last week’s portion). His father set a positive example — why should Abraham leave him?
Some obvious answers suggest themselves — adulthood, needing to make one’s own choices, his father not going far enough, etc.
But I think there is another answer. Abraham (known for the moment as Abram) needs to establish his own household. This is not just about making one’s own choice, but really about choosing one’s own starting point. It’s starting over.
Sometimes we start over in fundamental ways even if much that surrounds us remains the same. Sometimes the journey we have to ...
The story of Noah is familiar; the details, less so.
Noah is often seen as an ambivalent figure. He was righteous -- but only for his generation. What was his deficiency?
One answer suggests itself: knowing that the world was about to be flooded, he built an Ark for the animals and for his own family -- but did not try to save anyone else or to convince them to repent and change their ways (the prophet Jonah, later, would share that reluctance).
Abraham, later, would set himself apart by arguing with God -- with the Lord Himself! -- against the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, saying that they should be saved if there were enough righteous people to be found (there were not).
Still, Noah was good enough -- and sometimes, that really is sufficient to save the world. We don't need heroes every time -- just ordinary decency.
Hi all -- as I noted last month, I'm going to be closing down my Locals page, at least for tips and subscriptions -- I may keep the page up and the posts as well, but I'm no longer going to be accepting any kind of payment.
Look for cancelation in the very near future. Thank you for your support!
