• The most amazing detail to emerge about the meltdown at CBS News over Tony Dokoupil’s interview with Ta-Nehisi Coates is that CBS News has an in-house “Race and Culture Unit.” Gee—I wonder what kind of people staff this unit, and what their viewpoint is? (See the latest on the matter from Bari Weiss and Oliver Wiseman here.)
• Kamala Just Isn’t Very Good at This Department: Scott notes below that Kamala blundered in saying on The View that she can’t think of a thing where she differed with Joe Biden over the last four years. It’s another example of how bad she is at politics, as this is a question you would expect from even friendly interviewers (and is there any possibly more friendly venue for Harris than The View?), and thus have a good prepared answer.
I have a distinct recollection from 1988, but I cannot find a clip on YouTube or a news account of it, that vice president George H.W. Bush was asked the same question in the first debate of the large GOP field at the beginning of that primary season. He was asked, “Can you tell voters of any policies or decisions of President Reagan with which you disagreed over the last seven years?”
A confident Bush replied something as follows (again, going from memory here): “I could, but I won’t. A vice president’s job is to support and assist the president with candid advice, and my time with President Reagan has given me the experience to be the chief executive and lead the nation in the challenges ahead of us. . .” A nice pivot. It helped that at the time Reagan was very popular, so Bush was running, in effect, as Reagan’s third term. But even with Joe Biden’s unpopularity, it is sheer incompetence for Harris not to have an answer that will shut off this embarrassing line of inquiry.
• Feel Good Headline of the Day:
A Dutch museum has recovered an artwork that looks like two empty beer cans after a staff member accidentally threw it in the rubbish bin thinking it was trash. The work, entitled All The Good Times We Spent Together by French artist Alexandre Lavet, appears on first glance to be two discarded and dented beer tins.
However, a closer look shows they are in fact meticulously hand-painted with acrylics and “required a lot of time and effort to create”, according to the museum. But their artistic value was lost on a mechanic, who saw them displayed in a lift and chucked them in the bin.
Here let us recall the sage words of Kurt Vonnegut that much of modern art is “a conspiracy with millionaires to make poor people feel stupid.”
• Dumbest headline of the day:
U.S. Frustrated by Israel’s Reluctance to Share Iran Retaliation Plans
Israel has so far refused to divulge to the Biden administration details of its plans to retaliate against Tehran, U.S. officials said, even as the White House is urging its closest Middle East ally not to hit Iran’s oil facilities or nuclear sites amid fears of a widening regional war.
U.S. officials are frustrated that they have been repeatedly caught off guard by Israel’s military actions in Gaza and Lebanon, and are seeking to head off further escalation. Some had hoped the U.S. would learn more about what Israel was contemplating during a planned meeting Wednesday between Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon, but Gallant postponed his trip, the Pentagon said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blocked Gallant from departing to the U.S. on Tuesday night as Israel continued planning its Iran operation, an Israeli official said.
Actually, the headline itself is not dumb (it’s from the Wall Street Journal), but it omits reporting the obvious. Previous possible Israeli attack plans that were shared with the U.S. have leaked to the New York Times almost overnight. And we know that there is a high probability that Biden will try to stop Israel from doing anything meaningful. So why would Israel share plans with the United States?
• A footnote on Hurricane Milton. I am not sure how many people believe in the idea that the government, or some other equally evil force, has sufficient power to intensify and direct a hurricane. Roy Spencer, NASA scientist and one of the premier climate realists, offers this thought:
The article he references for background is here.
Chaser:
• P.S. As far as I can tell from a web search, there has never been a Hurricane Kamala. Just sayin’.
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