Who Ya Gonna Believe?

 

Another great Steyn essay - read the whole thing.  

A few excerpts:

~No nation has venerated its public health bureaucracy with more extravagant prostrations than the United Kingdom. Are they still holding their weekly "Clap for Carers" or whatever it's called? Is the preferred modification of the national anthem to "God Save Our NHS" still sung? The people clap for their carers, but do the carers care for their clappers? ...

For the first 43 minutes after the bomb [at the Ariana Grande concert in Manchester] there was only one paramedic in the City Room and he initially triaged but did not treat any patients. The fire service delayed for more than two hours before their officers went in and by the time they did so, the injured and dying had been removed from the City Room on makeshift stretchers made from advertising hoardings and crowd control barriers.

It was an hour and eight minutes before Bradley Hurley, the last casualty, was taken out of the foyer, suffering from two broken legs, having seen his sister, Megan, pass away next to him. As soon as he was at the bottom of the stairs he was put down again, and there he stayed for another three hours waiting for an ambulance.

.....

 ~Perhaps you're wondering why some observations on the Ariana Grande bloodbath started out with Kamala's poll numbers. Well, the distinguishing feature of these last eighteen months is the ruling class's conviction that it can defy reality - and impose delusion in place of that reality. To Mrs Thatcher's famous line that "the facts of life are conservative", the woke elites respond: Who cares? All the romance of life is woke, and that's what counts.

Kamala, for example, is total crap as a politician: I thought she was quite cute in that wacky Rubik's Cube outfit (see above), but then she starts cackling and pandering, and you think, "She's rubbish, isn't she?" She has no ability whatsoever to connect with people. I'm not making a partisan point here: Mitt Romney suffered from the same defect. As indeed do I, whenever your effete rootless cosmopolitan host walks into a sports bar in Alabama: it is well to know one's limitations in such circumstances. But Kamala doesn't connect with anyone, starting with her own staff.

Yet whoever's running the United States government (the Chi-Coms, Obama, the Davos crowd, Blofeld, you name it) doesn't care a jot or tittle. They picked her to be "the first black vice president", despite the reality of her inability to connect, and even though, as merely this season's British subject (the child of Jamaican and Indian immigrants, raised in Montreal), she has even less to do with the black American experience than Obama.

Because they figure reality is irrelevant. The myth, the heartwarming narrative, will keep the press on side - and the reality of a cold, cackling, third-rate incompetent will never break through the surface gloss of her glass-ceiling-shattering "diversity".

Kameal's baggage

 

She's 'Unbeatable?': WSJ Columnist Shreds the Liberal Media's New Kamala Harris Narrative With One Tweet

 If commentators are now struggling to define Ms. Harris, it’s because she offers little that is truly defining. The party establishment quickly closed ranks around her 2016 Senate race, allowing her to run a standard liberal campaign that the Los Angeles Times described as “carefully orchestrated” and “overly cautious and scripted.” In her 3½ Senate years, she’s done little by way of legislation, preferring to showboat at hearings. The lack of an animating agenda helps a explain a presidential campaign in which she bounced from left to far-left position, whatever she thought most helpful at the moment. She twice called to eliminate private health insurance—and twice reversed herself the next day after backlash. As Vox noted, the “combination of policy reversals and botched rollout . . . undermined faith in her ability to govern on the issue Democrats rate as most important.”

The campaign was a mess, rocked by infighting, leaks, restarts and financial problems. After the campaign announced layoffs in early November, its veteran Iowa operations manager wrote a scathing resignation letter in which she said she’d “never seen an organization treat its staff so poorly” and expressed dismay at its ability to make “the same unforced errors over and over.” Ms. Harris didn’t even make it to the first contest, dropping out—broke and with embarrassing poll numbers—two months before the Iowa caucuses. The only other “top tier” candidate to implode as quickly or spectacularly was Beto O’Rourke. The Washington Post campaign obituary bluntly called Ms. Harris an “uneven campaigner” who was “engulfed by low polling numbers, internal turmoil and a sense that she was unable to provide a clear message.” The Post this week lauded Ms. Harris as “vibrant and energetic” and a “vessel for Democratic hopes.”

Biden watchers insist the nominee fulfilled the cardinal rule of veep picks: First, do no harm. Possibly, but it’s pretty clear it did no good either. Mr. Biden’s biggest concern remains his lagging enthusiasm numbers. Polls consistently show the majority of Democratic voters notably unexcited about his candidacy. One fix would have been a running mate hailed as a fresh and rising Democratic star. Ms. Harris has alienated key elements of her party, in particular progressives who despise her as a “top cop” from her six years as California’s attorney general. In a poll this week by the Economist/YouGov, Ms. Harris was viewed favorably by only half of African-Americans and very favorably by only 26% of liberals. Will that keep people from pulling a Biden-Harris lever? Maybe not, but she won’t likely be a poll driver.

And there’s still a possibility she’ll do harm. Mr. Biden’s age and questions about his mental acuity guarantee an outsize focus on his running mate, who could end up president. Ms. Harris’s own presidential run proves she has a propensity to make mistakes—potentially big ones. The Trump campaign is eager to define her as a Bernie Sanders liberal, and she’s got a track record that helps—having endorsed Medicare for All, the Green New Deal and gun bans. Many Americans will also remember her leading role in the character assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, matched only in political theater by Cory “Spartacus” Booker. This has the potential to turn off some suburban and independent voters. Even if they don’t rush into Mr. Trump’s arms; they may simply not vote.

Viewers Starting To Doubt Objectivity Of Reporter With 'KAMALA 2020' Face Tattoo

The Babylon Bee strikes again!