Authored by the Issues & Insights Editorial Board,
If you want an idea of just how inept Kamala Harris has been as vice president, measure her against former Vice President Dan Quayle – the guy that the left universally berated as a pampered half-wit.
That characterization of Quayle was completely unfair. But when it comes to Harris, well, you be the judge.
Quayle’s approval ratings were, like Harris’, in the basement when he was VP. There was constant chatter among Republicans that George H.W. Bush should dump him. Few thought he was qualified to be president. Both he and Harris had privileged backgrounds and got a start on their careers more through connections than talent.
But the similarities end there.
Quayle’s unpopularity was the result of a relentless campaign by Democrats and the press to attack his qualifications. Harris earned her unpopularity by being unlikable and ineffectual.
Quayle was widely ridiculed as dumb, mainly because he sometimes misspoke and once misspelled “potato” at a classroom event (the word was misspelled on the card he got from the teacher). That was embarrassing and became the butt of a million jokes.
But it pales in comparison to Harris’ meaningless word salads, her utter inability to answer simple questions, and the time she stood at the DMZ in South Korea and declared: “The United States shares a very important relationship, which is an alliance with the Republic of North Korea. It is an alliance that is strong and enduring.” That monumental display of stupidity was quickly swept under the rug.
As senator, Quayle was an accomplished legislator who could work both sides of the aisle and who achieved something that, until it happened, seemed impossible: He managed to convince a Democratically controlled House and Senate to gut a job training program that dated back to FDR and replace it with a public-private partnership that was “unique at the time because it linked explicit performance standards with performance incentives.”
Harris? Even in her campaign bio, she can’t list a single accomplishment as senator. She “led” on legislation that didn’t get enacted, “served” on some committees, and “fought for critical issues.” Oh, and she “grilled Donald Trump’s nominees,” all of whom were approved by the Senate anyway.
But it’s their respective records as vice president where Harris’ comparative incompetence truly shines.
One of the first jobs Bush handed to Quayle was to run a new Council on Competitiveness, with the mission to root out and streamline federal regulations.
In late 1991, a Los Angeles Times reporter asked a Republican Party activist and businessman to name the most influential power centers in Washington, and he “responded without hesitation: ‘The national security-Defense Department apparatus, the Department of State and the Council on Competitiveness.”
The Times goes on to report that:
Chaired by Vice President Dan Quayle and staffed by less than a dozen of his aides, the Council on Competitiveness is only recently emerging from the obscurity that has surrounded its increasingly influential role as the arbiter of regulatory disputes within the Bush administration.
Quayle’s council was so effective that Democratic lawmakers made several attempts to dismantle it before Bush lost his reelection bid. Clinton immediately disbanded the council when he took office.
Biden, on the other hand, gave Harris the job of confronting a border crisis by dealing with its “root causes.” She visited Central America twice, handed out billions in aid, and told Central Americans “Don’t come, don’t come,” after which about 10 million flooded across the border.
Biden also put her in charge – at Harris’ own insistence – of “securing voter rights,” by which he meant getting a Democratic bill passed that would open the floodgates to election fraud. Harris failed, even though Democrats controlled both chambers of Congress.
Harris was also tasked in early 2021 with managing the $42 billion Biden-Harris stuffed into the infrastructure bill to extend broadband access to those still without it. “I’m asking the vice president to lead this effort,” Biden said, “because I know it will get done.”
The press reported at the time that “Biden’s choice to put Harris in charge is a sign the White House sees broadband as a top priority.”
As of this month, not a single person has been connected to the internet using that money.
Instead, the program got completely bogged down with Harris-approved rules and mandates, prompting nine senators to write her this month, saying: “It appears that your performance as ‘broadband czar’ has mirrored your performance as ‘border czar,’ marked by poor management and a lack of effectiveness despite significant federal broadband investments and your promises to deliver broadband to rural areas.”
On foreign policy, Quayle is credited with “winning support on Capitol Hill for some of Bush’s important foreign policy legislation, including the 1991 bill authorizing the U.S. military operation to oust Iraq’s forces from Kuwait.”
Harris claims to have been the last person in the room advising Biden to go forward with his disastrous and deadly Afghan withdrawal.
On Israel, she’s been described as”the first and often the loudest voice within the Biden administration talking about the need for a ceasefire,” which has resulted in humiliation after humiliation for Biden, no ceasefire, and at least one dead American hostage.
Earlier this year, presidential historian Tevi Troy wrote this about Quayle:
He represented the administration well externally, prepared for engagements, was highly accessible to the media, and was thoroughly versed in policy. He was well-liked inside the administration and much respected by conservatives outside the administration. Perhaps most importantly, Bush liked and trusted him, which explains why Quayle remained on the 1992 ticket.
Can anyone – who is not a die-hard Democrat or a member of the hopelessly corrupt media – honestly say anything like that about Kamala Harris?
Quayle’s public career ended in November 1992 when Bush lost reelection in a humiliating defeat. We hope and pray that Harris’ ends in November 2024 in an even more humiliating fashion.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
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