The new media trend, other than shoving aside fawning Beto profiles in favor of folksy veteran Mayor Pete, seems to be naively implying that presidential contender and “woke prosecutor” Kamala Harris has atoned for her old law-and-order instincts and was never really that bad anyway. It would be great if she did indeed reverse course, but it’s silly to act as if she’s doing anything other than good old-fashioned pandering.
In fact, to celebrate Mother’s Day, Harris decided to float a revisionist story about her record on truancy crackdowns, pretending she didn’t spend years flagrantly supporting expanding laws that make it easier to hit parents with fines and jail time if their kids were caught skipping school. CNN’s Jake Tapper miraculously called her out but still didn’t press the issue nearly enough:
TAPPER: This truancy initiative is something that you have had to answer some questions about … which threatened prosecution for parents of students who miss too much school. You told a story in a 2010 speech…
HARRIS: Uh-huh.
TAPPER: … about a homeless single mother with three kids working two jobs. You said, under your truancy initiative, her children’s attendance improved. And you dismissed charges that you had filed against her.
HARRIS: Yes, that’s right.
TAPPER: Now, can you explain to people who are skeptical … why threatening her with jail time was the right way to handle that problem?
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11.30.2024