I sat down on Thursday evening and watched CNN for the first time in years. My expectations were low because I follow the dictum of my friend and brilliant reader Dolores * who says, “low expectations are the key to happiness.”

I was, of course, there to watch the HISTORIC, FIRST EVER INTERVIEW (snark warning) with VP Kamala Harris and Governor Tim Walz.

It was about as I expected.

The corporate and legacy media harped on Joe Biden for months that he needed to sit down and do a “tough, one-on-one interview” with a real journalist. Preferably with the New York Times, which wants us all to believe that it is the true gatekeeper of deciding who is eligible to run the country. But their years-long romance with Donald Trump while avoiding dealing with any meaningful policy positions (he has none) or disqualifying character issues (he has too many to list here) and the relentless “but her emails” attack on Hillary Clinton long-ago disqualified them from claiming any positive role in our elections.

For Thursday evening’s interview with CNN “journalist” Dana Bash (more on that in a moment), Kamala and Tim did just fine. They were polite and in good spirits, they answered every question, and they showed a real grasp of the issues (not that the questions did).

I thought Harris did an especially good job in two key areas. As Marcy Wheeler observed, “Kamala is not eschewing the incumbency she has as Vice President. On the contrary, she is running on a continuation and expansion of Joe Biden’s successful policies (even if journalists are missing that).” She’s a better salesperson for Biden’s accomplishments than he is. Biden is very good at being president but is less skilled at touting what he’s accomplished.

Second, Harris has found a way to wrap democracy and American exceptionalism in a forward-looking, joyful, bipartisan flag. In place of the American carnage that Trump sees around every corner, she and Walz see the goodness of the American people and the possibility of living together and growing in community.

Harris and Walz demonstrated why they have the momentum on their side. They are normal, and that feels great in the face of over eight years of Trump’s assault on basic norms and human decency.

Of course, they have to do all of this even as they deal with really dumb questions. Dana Bash, to put it bluntly, is not a serious journalist. “She’s a gotcha generator.”

She asked the obligatory “what will you do on the very first day of your presidency” question. But there were four (at least) worthless questions that drove me crazy.

First there was this:

“Madam Vice President, Donald Trump says you only recently became Black. What is your response?”

Who cares? What is Harris going to say, that Trump is “a racist? We already know this.” What’s the point?

Harris had a perfect response.

“Same old, tired playbook. Next question, please.”

Then there was the disingenuous question, as in why Harris, as Vice President, hasn’t somehow already fulfilled all her policy priorities, without mentioning a hostile House of Representatives or right-wing SCOTUS. Does Dana Bash understand how our system of government works? Apparently not. 

Or Bash’s desire to say that Tim Walz can’t be trusted because he said he and his wife used IVF when in fact they used IUI.

“IVF has become a catch-all phrase for any medically assisted pregnancy. Yes, IUI—the procedure the Walzes used—is technically not the same thing as IVF, but . . .you might as well scream at people who say please hand me a Kleenex when can’t you see it says Scott Tissues right on the box?”

Then she wants to litigate over-and-over again, some perceived change in the candidates’ position. “Here’s what you said five years ago, here’s what you said now, why did you change.” Donald Trump “routinely changes positions on major issues in the middle of a sentence—and nobody in the press bothers to say boo.”

Donald Trump is not a serious person and most of the members of our corporate political press are not serious journalists. But the damage they both can do is very real and dangerous.

Mark Sumner observed that when the New York Times’ “7 Takeaways” article includes that Harris “struggles to be punchy off the cuff,” Walz “is good at sitting and smiling,” and that Bash was hampered because the small table made it hard for her to be tough on Harris, “you could feel the outlet’s disappointment.” 

Now that she’s had the interview with CNN, the press who have been screaming why won’t Kamala talk to us will just move on to their next manufactured grievance.

As Jeff Tiedrich has written (warning: salty language), the media can’t cover this story, or much of anything else, because their brain is broken.

Take a look at these two headlines. Can you spot the difference?

“All that crap that rocketed out of Donny’s mouth at the Republican convention? Those were just claims. But Kamala? False and misleading.“

Here’s another set of dueling headlines. Both of these things cannot be true at the same time. Given the history of the country’s “paper of record,” I’m going with the LA Times.

And this “just might be the most petty fact check of all time.”

“Politifact is mad at the Democrats because Beyoncé never made an appearance at the DNC . . . however: the Dems never said Beyoncé was going to be a surprise performer. The whole thing was a complete fiction promulgated by—you guessed it—the press.“

Unbelievable. Just unbelievable.

A few weeks ago, brilliant reader Carol—in a play on the Washington Post tagline that “Democracy Dies in Darkness”—wrote a comment to one of my essays that said, “[s]o much of the recent reportage by even (previously) respected media raises the threat of democracy as dying not so much ‘in darkness’ as in drivel and distortion.”

I’ve seriously had it with our corporate political media and their dangerous unseriousness. And since it is Saturday—soundtrack day here on MORE TO COME—it seemed appropriate to end with a “you can rest assured I’m gone” song. No one does it better than Dolly.

More to come . . .

DJB

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*H/T to Joe Posnanski for the great descriptor for those who read and comment on this newsletter.

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Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash