Kamala Stays Consistent, Troublesome Israelis, and Other Opinions
From the left: Same Old Kamala
It’s “increasingly evident that [Kamala] Harris is not a significantly different politician than she was five years ago,” frets Alex Shephard at The New Republic.
“She is overcautious and reluctant to stake out positions,” “her priorities and approach to policy remain murky” and she is “in many ways, running the exact same campaign now that she did five years ago and hoping for a different result.”
That “campaign failed in large part because she couldn’t offer a larger vision for her party or the country.”
Worse, “she often doesn’t have specific answers to questions.”
Indeed, “the flaws in Harris’s approach are as clear now as they were five years ago — and they could prove to be just as disastrous now as they were then.”
From the right: Harris Camp’s Flawed ‘Theory of the Case’
“The Harris campaign’s entire theory of the case is wrong,” argues National Review’s Jim Geraghty: “Reminding people about what they couldn’t stand about Trump and emphasizing ‘joy’ and ‘vibes’ is not sufficient to close the deal with an electorate” that’s “been coping with runaway inflation,” a border crisis, a “post-Covid rise in crime,” and “an international scene beset by invasions, terrorism, and massacres.”
Harris must “find something that hasn’t been done enough under Biden, say that it was a mistake that it wasn’t prioritized enough, and pledge [she’s] the person to get it done. Throw Biden under the bus if you have to.”
Foreign desk: Dems only Demand Compliance from Israel
“White House frustration with Benjamin Netanyahu has been a running theme this week,” bemoans Commentary’s Seth Mandel.
And he “coverage revolves around the notion that Israel is disobedient.”
CBS’s Bill Whitaker said to Kamala Harris: “We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course.”
Wednesday’s New York Times “carries a long reflection on Biden’s inability to control events in the Middle East over the past year.”
In reality, “Biden’s problem” is not “Israel’s defiance — it’s Iran’s defiance” of his warnings against attacking Israel.
“Nobody has been asking Biden or Harris why the Iranians don’t listen to them . . . we only seem to ask it about the one country under assault and surrounded by genocidal enemies: Israel.”
War watch: Israel Won’t Hold Back
Now that “the leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah have been decimated,” warn Jonathan Sweet & Mark Toth at The Hill, “Iran’s day of reckoning is nearing.”
Israel’s answer to Tehran’s attacks by proxy and by ballistic missiles “will be violent, destructive and disproportionate — intent on inflicting massive amounts of damage to Iran’s ability to fire ballistic missiles at Israel; fund, equip and train proxy terrorist groups to attack Israel; and achieve ‘nuclear breakout.’”
Expect not “one large retaliatory strike, but rather a series of strikes building upon one another.”
Targets may include Iran’s missile sites and factories, “Iranian oil infrastructure,” “key nuclear facilities where uranium enrichment is taking place,” or even “Iranian leadership.”
As for President Biden’s concerns: “For Netanyahu and his war cabinet, their national security is at stake, and they are prepared to go it alone.”
Budget beat: We’re Drowning in Red Ink
“The legacy hits keep coming from the Biden-Harris Administration,” thunder The Wall Street Journal’s editors.
The latest: “The federal budget deficit for fiscal 2024 clocked in at $1.83 trillion” — despite “a growing economy and no pandemic, financial crisis” or major US war.
Such red ink “is unprecedented in an otherwise benign economic environment — except for the previous years of the Biden Presidency.”
With revenues rising, the hole should be shrinking. But spending is out of control, now accounting for “one in four of every dollar” Americans produce. Interest payments alone now exceed the defense budget.
And Kamala Harris would raise taxes further to fund yet more spending. Alas, “the tax and spending won’t stop until the voters, or the bond vigilantes, yell ‘enough.’”
— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
