With President Biden caught up on his sleep during the NATO leadres dinner in Lithuania, Vice President Harris was holding down the fort in Washington. Yesterday she presided over a roundtable discussion on the Americans with Disabilities Act in the Executive Office Building’s Indian Treaty Room. The White House has posted the transcript of her remarks here.
Harris demonstrated her way with words in classic style (video below): “This issue of transportation is fundamentally about just making sure that people have the ability to get where they need to go. It’s that basic.”
Before she got there, Harris demonstrated her sensitivity:
As we have blind and low-vision folks here today, I will describe what I am wearing. I’m wearing a lavender-color suit and a flag pin, and seated here with all of the colleagues and friends at a U-shaped table.
The (metaphorical) blind are leading the (literal) blind, as Harris displayed in her tribute to Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg:
Thank you, Secretary Buttigieg, for your work, for your leadership, as we know when we think about this movement — which is the fight for the rights, the dignity, for equality, equity for folks with disabilities — the issue of transportation is a very foundational and fundamental one. And you have been a great leader on this and many other issues through your role of leadership of the Department of Transportation. So I thank you for that.
Thank you, Secretary Buttigieg, for your work, for your leadership, as we know when we think about this movement — which is the fight for the rights, the dignity, for equality, equity for folks with disabilities — the issue of transportation is a very foundational and fundamental one. And you have been a great leader on this and many other issues through your role of leadership of the Department of Transportation. So I thank you for that.
Is this some kind of a joke? I thought the humor might be sly — that she might be satirizing the nonfeasance of the administration’s maestro of “transportation” as precisely defined by Harris. On second thought, however, no. Harris can’t help but satirize herself.
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