The media's double standard comes for Kamala Harris — and misses

Ah, the lazy, crazy days of August during a presidential election year are upon us. That's traditionally when the political press decides that the Democratic candidate has not been accessible enough to them, so they spend weeks badgering them for interviews and demanding press conferences while insinuating that the candidate must be hiding something.

Recall the 2016 cycle when, during the month of August, the press had a collective tantrum because HIllary Clinton's staffers roped her off as she walked in a parade in order to keep reporters and photographers from turning the event into a paparazzi-style scrum. I wrote at the time:

Aaron Blake recounted the event in all its chilling detail and then rather sheepishly admitted that nobody in America really gives a damn about how Hillary Clinton treats the press. (A point I made a month ago.) After all, the press is held in only slightly higher esteem by the public than loan sharks and puppy mill operators. The thinly veiled threat underneath all this outrage is that the media will react to being treated badly by giving the candidate bad press, but it's pretty clear that train left the station a long time ago when it comes to Clinton, so the cost-benefit analysis probably doesn't argue in favor of the campaign giving a damn either.

You could not blame her. That election year was the worst. It was the "but her emails" campaign and we all know how the political media dropped the ball on that. They hysterically chased rumors that Clinton had brain damage and was hiding serious health issues, demanding that she open her medical records to the public and share the details of every doctor visit. (They were all too happy, however, to rely on Dr. Feelgood for a laughable rundown of Donald Trump's health.)

As far as we can tell, the mainstream media never accepted their culpability in that shocking upset despite their knowledge that it was their ridiculous obsession and relentless pursuit out of a desire to get the "scoop" that finally brought Hillary Clinton down. And if they weren't that far gone, they did think it was good sport since they were sure that Donald Trump couldn't possibly win. The consequences of their collective behavior were world-changing.

This year we've had another version of that same dynamic with the relentless demands earlier in the year for President Biden to sit down for an interview with the New York Times. In retrospect, it's clear that they were looking to confirm the rumors of his alleged incapacity, which he ended up confirming on his own in a debate that his team pushed for. But the imperiousness of the Times in their quest to expose him is still galling.

Take, for example, this interview of Times editor Joe Kahn with Semafor back in April in which he was asked about a comment by former Obama White House official Dan Pfeiffer, who said of the press: “They do not see their job as saving democracy or stopping an authoritarian from taking power.” Kahn replied:

To say that the threats of democracy are so great that the media is going to abandon its central role as a source of impartial information to help people vote — that’s essentially saying that the news media should become a propaganda arm for a single candidate, because we prefer that candidate’s agenda

Needless to say, Pfeiffer wasn't talking about Biden or Trump's policy agenda. He was talking about the "Big Agenda" to destroy democracy (Project 2025?) which Kahn made clear later that he really doesn't see as a problem. He went on to say that the paper's job is to write about what people care about and democracy is way down the list after immigration and crime. He sounded very sanguine about Trump winning another term. Keep in mind, though, that at this moment he and his reporters and editorialists were pounding on Biden over his age. Now that might very well be a legitimate line of inquiry, but when you pursue that line without also probing the increasingly unhinged behavior of Donald Trump (who is also elderly) you give away the game.

Biden was hostile to the Times and other members of the elite press because they refused to give him credit for a somewhat miraculous economic recovery (ostensibly because of vibes) and dogged him about his advanced age. Trump, on the other hand, lives for media attention, even though he rarely says anything that makes sense, so they see him as a candidate playing by the rules because he makes himself available to spout his gibberish.

I had thought when Biden finally withdrew and Harris became the nominee that they might be satisfied and give Harris some running room. (They have done that with certain Democratic candidates they like.) But that was not to be. Sure, she's running against someone who is getting in fights with the Army, flip-flopping so violently it's only a matter of time before he comes out for Medicare for All and a 60% tax on millionaires but they don't seem to be bothered much by it. Rather than the relentless, focused coverage we saw with "butheremails" and "Biden is old" they're covering him like just another candidate. As Kahn said in that interview:

It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them?

Talk about missing the forest for the trees. Trump's "ideas" about all those things are, to use a technical term, cracked. More importantly, there is a massive story unfolding before our very eyes in which one of America's political parties has turned itself into an authoritarian cult led by a convicted criminal. All those "issues" Kahn believes are so important to present in a fair unbiased manner are informed by this much more important story. Whether or not Americans are going to go along with Trump's dark, foreboding vision of the future or will choose something normal is what this election is about.

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Last night Harris and her running mate Tim Walz appeared on CNN for an interview. When it was announced, many people criticized the dual appearance, suggesting that she needed Walz to lean on so she must be weak. But it's actually a tradition for the ticket to appear together for a big interview, often right after the convention. (The press knows that, they just played dumb.)

(Former President Bush even refused to meet without Vice President Cheney for the interview by the 9/11 Commission. Talk about a crutch.)

Harris and Walz gave a very predictable, anodyne interview. They are both experienced politicians and know how to do these things. As usual, they had to spend about half the time rebutting right-wing smears, dutifully regurgitated by the host Dana Bash. Harris clearly did not need Walz as a crutch and he was his usual charming self when called upon. They got into some policy details, both seemed comfortable, and that was it. It was hard to see what all the media frenzy was about.

But it hasn't ended. Almost immediately there were calls for a press conference. Maybe she should just do one like Trump does: Say anything she wants for an hour and then just take three or four questions and call it a day. They seem perfectly satisfied when he does it.