For Biden, no vice is a virtue

By BRUCE LOWITT

Vice President Kamala Harris, realizing she was what she called “a drag, an albatross, an anchor on my party” as Joe Biden’s running mate for the 2024 presidential election, relinquished her office Friday and was immediately named by California Gov. Gavin Newsom to the newly vacant U.S. Senate seat created by the death of Diane Feinstein.

“I can’t say that it was the president’s idea,” Harris, D-Encumbrance, said, “but every time I walked into the Oval Office and asked him about the campaign he’d pick up a phone and pretend he was talking to someone special about something important and wave me away. So I got the hint.”

Biden, who according to recent polls is either tied with Donald Trump or trailing the twice-impeached, quadruple-indicted former president he defeated in 2020, declined to comment on Harris’ decision to drop off the Democratic ticket but said he was planning to announce a replacement “right after I talk to Gavin about his plans for the next five years.”

In March 2021, Newsom, during an interview on MSNBC, said he would appoint a Black woman to Feinstein’s seat if she retired before her term ended. Reminded of that, he said, “Well, well, well. How do you like me now?”

Meanwhile, Biden pointed out that he had followed through on his promise to put a Black woman on the U.S. Supreme Court when he nominated Katanji Brown Jackson last year after Stephen Breyer retired.

“Also, I picked Kamala, the first Black vice president and the first female vice president. I never promised she’d stay the whole eight years I’m in office, or even the first four,” Biden said. “But now that that weight’s been lifted – I mean, now that Ms. Harris is back where she wanted to be, where she said she felt useful instead of just being a prop at ribbon cuttings and foreign trips and chairwoman of pointless committees – I’m done with this gender business, this racial business.

“I’m going to select as my new vice president the gov- … I mean someone who will strengthen the ticket and be a great president someday – and shut up all those people who complained I’d take the Democratic Party down with me if I died in office,” said Biden, who turns 81 on Nov. 20. “There, I said it. I’m old. Hell, maybe I’ll retire next year. Like my dad used to tell me, ‘Joey, do you like movies about gladiators?’”

The appointment of Harris, just one day after the death of the 90-year-old Feinstein, created firestorms among Democrats who already had announced they would run for the seat she had held since 1992.

“Well, shit!” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Impeachments, said. “I didn’t think Gavin was serious about that Black woman thing. I was leading in the polls. Now what? I’m a white male. That’d be two strikes against me – but I’m Jewish. Imagine, the first Jewish vice president. Yeah, Kamala married a Jewish guy but that doesn’t count.”

Democratic Reps. Katie Porter and Barbara Lee were equally frustrated but each said she thought Harris would be vulnerable in the 2024 election because, as Porter put it, “Most people around here have forgotten she was ever in the Senate to begin with. In fact, I think most people have forgotten who she is.”