Kamala Harris wants you to forget all she once stood for

OPINION:

In the 1997 film “Men in Black,” a pen like device causes people to forget everything they have seen and heard. Actor Will Smith calls it a “flashy thing.”

It appears the media and Democrats are metaphorically using a similar device, hoping voters will forget everything Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has said and done in the past — even the recent past — and accept that what she is saying today are her true beliefs, even when they contradict previous statements and supposed “convictions.”

Not that the media need any help in following their largely liberal biases, which have usually favored Democrats and progressives, but their already low approval numbers won’t be helped by this story from Semafor.com, which stated that Ms. Harris “has invited a parade of prominent television anchors and media executives to dine with her at the Naval Observatory, given personal tours of her garden to journalists from diverse backgrounds, and shaped trips to do media appearances with the outlets serving Democratic-leaning groups the White House refers to as ’coalition media.’”

Coalition media? Sounds Orwellian, as in “groupthink.”

There is so much the media and Ms. Harris’ fellow Democrats want to forget she said and did that the flashy thing might need to be constantly recharged.

Just a few examples: At the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, Ms. Harris promoted a bail fund that freed men convicted of murder and sexual assault. While out on bail, some committed more crimes. Sounds like what happened to Democratic Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis when Willie Horton, a convicted murderer who had been sentenced to life without parole, received a weekend furlough, traveled to Maryland where he raped a woman after pistol-whipping, stabbing, binding and gagging her fiance. He then stole the car belonging to the man he had assaulted. A TV ad about Horton helped ruin Mr. Dukakis’ 1988 presidential campaign, helping then Vice President George H.W. Bush win.

As a senator, Ms. Harris supported what a Wall Street Journal editorial called “the spending blowouts that cause inflation.” Flashy thing.

As a California progressive from San Francisco, perhaps the most liberal city in the United States, Ms. Harris is apparently all in on the Green New Deal, expansion of entitlements that are the cause of much of our $35 trillion debt, student loan forgiveness (which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional), tax increases, which President Biden favors as the Trump tax cuts are to expire next year, a guaranteed income for families making up to $100,000 a year (shades of George McGovern in 1972), free college tuition for families making up to $100,000 a year (co-sponsored by progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent, and Rep. Pramila Jayapal, Washington Democrat), single-payer health care, which would mean turning our health care over to the government, which does so many things poorly, Medicare for all (unaffordable and see previous comment about government). Flashy.

She’s also in favor of Mr. Biden’s proposal to transform the Supreme Court into a permanent liberal body.

Again, as The Wall Street Journal notes: “As California Attorney General [she launched] an investigation into Exxon Mobil over its carbon emissions … and in 2019 she endorsed a nationwide ban on oil and gas fracking, a position she has now reversed” because she needs those Pennsylvania electoral votes. Flashy.

And let’s not forget that Ms. Harris once compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement to the Ku Klux Klan. ICE, along with Border Patrol agents, has been impossibly burdened by the Biden-Harris open border policy. Flashy.

There’s much more about her opinions and record, making things more difficult to forget. But the flashy thing also known as the Fourth Estate has the power to make it happen. Will voters make an effort to remember?

• Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book, “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).