She is Just That Dumb

I’ve written before that my favorite scene from the Band of Brothers series is when Captain Dick Winters is freezing but still has the discipline to break up some ice in an ammo can so he can lather his face and shave. It shows discipline and doing what is right. My second favorite scene in the series is when Dick, who is now a Major, sees his former commander, Herbert Sobel, who is still a Captain. Sobel tries to avoid eye contact as to avoid saluting his former subordinate, but Dick casually reminds him that “we salute the rank, not the man”. There is a touch of the same discipline in there, but also a dig at a man who deserved it.

I served under four different Presidents before I retired; Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Trump. They were the President and Commander in Chief. I respected the office they held, no matter which party they came from. I did, somewhat often, question my respect for them as men for a number of reasons. I saluted the office, not the man.

Thankfully, the Vice President is not an office I was ever forced to salute because that office has nothing to do with the military chain of command. I did, and do, continue to respect that office but the people who filled it gave me as much reason to question my respect for them as their bosses did. Between VP Gore making his ridiculous claims about inventing the internet and climate change melting the ice caps by 2016 (still there by the way), to VP Cheney accidentally shooting someone, to VP Biden’s own boss saying he had the ability to “fuck things up”, to VP Pence being less than impactful in his ability to keep his boss under control, this crowd were less than useful while occupying their offices.

But now, our current Vice President is the worst of the bunch. After 18 months as Vice President, Kamala Harris has provided plenty of evidence of her incompetence. So much so, that anyone who backs her at this point makes me question you as a voter. She really is that bad.

At one point, I thought it was overconfidence on her part. I believed she thought she could walk into any room, any meeting, any engagement and manage it without the proper preparation. I thought she had been told for so many years that she was that good, she began to believe it and started to slack off.

Then, I believed for a short time her staff was incompetent. I know what it is like to be on the personal staff for someone in a position of significant power. I know what it looks like to prepare them for media engagements, personal engagements, travel, public appearances, and even Congressional testimony. I’ve been intimately involved in those kinds of preparations, and I know how difficult it can be. But after 18 months, she should have the right staff on board so that’s not it.

I also thought she was just bad at public speaking. That’s a real thing, even for people in the highest positions of power. President George W. Bush was notorious for being a bad public speaker. Not everyone can be President Reagan or President Clinton, who were both exceptional orators. I honestly believe that’s not it either.

She’s just dumb. Period.

I know, you’re going to say that no one gets to be the Vice President or the California Attorney General by being stupid. I’ll remind you that you’ve spent the last 18 months talking about how mentally incompetent President Biden is or the four years before that talking about how stupid President Trump was. Most people are on either side of that argument, so don’t suddenly defend her by saying you have to be smart to hold public office. You have to have money and political support to hold public office. There is no IQ test in the process.

I’ll say it again; she is just that dumb.

If you go back and look, when she dropped out of the Presidential race in 2020, the only had 2.5-3.5% support, depending on what poll you looked at. She had raised less money than any of the rest of the candidates, which showed how little confidence voters had in her. By the way, President Biden hadn’t even declared to run when she dropped out. Everyone knew she was a dud, even in the early stages of the campaign.

Yet, here we are.

With all that being said, the question to ask is “Why did President Biden choose her as a running mate?” It certainly wasn’t because she had a ton of supporters and he needed those votes. It certainly wasn’t because she brought great competency to the table. She didn’t have a massive “war chest” of donations to contribute to the overall campaign, so that wasn’t it. So why?

It’s time to admit the American voting public has been duped. Specifically, swing voters and middle of the road Democrats. Vice President Harris is everything that President Biden is not. She isn’t an old, white, male, career beltway politician. She is young(er), mixed race, female, from California. This was a decision based on hedging their bets on demographics. That’s all it was.

Now, we are stuck with yet ANOTHER incompetent and ineffective Vice President. Unfortunately, the President is also incompetent and ineffective, and the White House is trying to use VP Harris to fill in the gaps, forgetting why they put her on the ticket in the first place. They’ve forgotten that she was a horrible candidate even in the beginning. They’ve disregarded her incompetence. Or…they think that Americans are too stupid to care or know any better.

But, after 18 months of lackadaisical job performance, nervous giggling, avoiding the real difficult work, and countless public appearances ending in word salad (I love that phrase), we should all be able to see how incompetent she really is. The data is there. Any C-Suite executive in the country with her job performance after 18 months would be fired. Period.

I will continue to respect the office of the Vice President. Lord knows if Vice President Cheney didn’t make me bail on that office, I’m not doing it now. But, I think we can all agree, the person occupying the seat does not deserve the same respect as the office she holds.

Why? Because she is just that dumb.