Commentary on Kamala Harris’ Possible Opportunity in Chicago and Venezuela’s Gloomy Future

Election watch: Kamala’s Chicago Opportunity

Hard-left protesters’ plan to ruin Democrats’ Chicago convention “presents the vice president with an opportunity for a Sister Souljah moment à la Bill Clinton,” notes The Wall Street Journal’s William McGurn. “In the 1992 campaign, after the hip-hop artist had made some incendiary remarks about race,” Clinton denounced her — “impressing voters by standing up to extremists in his own coalition.” Likewise, Chicago “protests could be a make-or-break moment” for Harris. Standing up to them would “increase her appeal to moderate Democratic and independent voters.” Unruly protests will enable Harris “to burnish her credentials as a no-nonsense leader who supports law and order.” She could walk back her “sympathy for the defund-the-police movement and show she meant what she said when she denounced anti-American protesters at Union Station.”

Foreign desk: Venezuela’s Bleak Future

Venezuelans’ hopes “to unseat President Nicolas Maduro . . . were crushed” when he was deemed the winner of the recent election and given a third, six-year term, laments the TIPP Insights editorial board. “In the past decade, more than 7.8 million Venezuelans have fled the country.” With Maduro now “expected to stay in office until 2031, the exodus is expected to increase,” and many will come to the United States. “It’s not only the influx of illegal immigrants into the country that is a cause of concern”; Maduro’s government has “forged close ties with China, Iran, Russia, and Cuba.” “Freedom, fundamental human rights, economic and social prosperity, and hopes of reunifying separated families were all on the ballot and now seem farther from Venezuela’s reach.”

Libertarian: Jankowicz’s Well-Earned Slap

Imagine feeling you were “smeared” as the “would-be chief censor of a government body tasked with policing people’s speech” that’s been “dissolved amidst public outcry,” snarks Reason’s J.D. Tuccille. You “sue your critics for defamation,” but “the judge tosses” your case, saying “you and your stillborn board really were created” to censor. “Ouch.” That’s exactly what happened to Nina Jankowicz, who was to head Team Biden’s proposed Disinformation Governance Board. District Judge Colm Connolly ruled, in her suit against Fox News, that most of Fox’s criticism was targeted at the board, not her; that many of its statements were opinion, which is not actionable; and that others were, in fact, true. If government officials aim to “police speech,” they should “grow thicker skins” when called out. That’s “sincere advice, not disinformation.”

Mideast beat: ‘Redrawing’ Israel’s Borders

Tying a Gaza ceasefire to peace with Hezbollah, as the Biden administration has done, “is reminiscent of the long-debunked ‘linkage theory’ ” of the Mideast, argues Commentary’s Seth Mandel: “A peace deal with the Palestinians is considered a prerequisite to solving any other conflict.” Yet “no other country” must follow “such inane rules.” This “attitude erodes Israeli sovereignty,” but an even worse blow to Israeli sovereignty is if Israel can’t make the area near the Lebanese and Gaza borders safe. Antony Blinken’s linkage of “the two borders to a Gaza ceasefire” is “more or less giving a green light to the folks ready to rain down thousands of rockets a day from up north. This is not how you get peace; it is how you get war.”

From the right: FBI Boss Casts Cloud Over Trump

After “the FBI director openly wondered whether the former president was shot,” it’s clear “the left is trying to memory-hole the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump,” fumes The Washington Times’ editorial board. Though “this was the first attempt on a former or current president’s life to be recorded simultaneously from multiple angles by hundreds of high-definition cameras,” Director Christopher Wray claimed “there’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel” that hit Trump. The FBI later confirmed it was a bullet, yet the bureau’s leadership has “left a cloud of doubt over the Republican candidate” — just as James Comey, Wray’s predecessor, did when he turned “the Steele dossier into a political weapon against Trump.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board