The panelists on the post-Democratic convention edition of PBS’s Washington Week with The Atlantic’s Friday night political roundtable offered an assortment of bias, lauding the Harris campaign the night after her acceptance speech, while also praising Michelle Obama as “the most admired woman on Earth” and maybe the whole solar system and spouting about the Democratic embrace of “freedom.”
USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page hailed Harris’s fledgling campaign.
Page: The most surefooted 33 days in modern American political history that we've seen….In 33 days she went from being No. 2 on a ticket that was trailing and now she has made virtually not a single mistake and has claimed the nomination and momentum, and got us -- the Democrats back to an even-up race.
Oops! Yes, Page apparently said “us” before correcting herself to “the Democrats.” Is there a difference?
The show host hailed another prominent convention speaker, former first lady Michelle Obama.
Jeffrey Goldberg: By the way, just noting for the record that the gap between her, Michelle Obama's political talent and her lack of desire to be in politics, is the greatest gap in American life. I mean, that is a talented, in American life--
Page: And that was the greatest speech of the convention [indecipherable]--
Politico’s Eugene Daniels also showered blessings on the former first lady and her angry speech.
Daniels: Michelle Obama continues to be the most admired woman on Earth, right. There's no one better to have?
Goldberg: On Earth?
Daniels: On Earth, on the planet, and maybe other planets too. I don't know. I haven't talked to Mars.
To bring this down to Earth, when pollsters like Gallup ask for the "most admired woman," Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton have won, but with 10 or 15 percent of the volunteered responses.
Mark Leibovich of The Atlantic admired the supposed normalcy of the DNC and actually said “there is actually quite a bit of sort of centrist Republican energy or potential growth there.”
“Centrist Republican energy”?
None of the in-the-tank panelists paused to correct this clip aired from Harris’s speech.
Harris: In many ways, Donald Trump is an unserious man. But the consequences of putting Donald Trump back in the White House are extremely serious. Consider the power he will have, especially after the United States Supreme Court just ruled that he would be immune from criminal prosecution. Just imagine, Donald Trump with no guardrails.
No guardrails, and no fact-checking either for that false claim. Even CNN objected, albeit with the weaselly “this needs context.”
Leibovich loved it when Harris belittled Trump as “unserious” while also casting him as a threat to democracy.
Leibovich: ….And as I was sitting in the hall, I mean, it was deathly quiet in that moment….I actually thought that was her best moment. And in the hall, I mean, everyone was like, that's a home run. I thought in the hall it felt more like a double, maybe. But when I saw it digested on video and in clips and so forth, it certainly seemed elevated and that seemed to be what people clung to, which I thought was very effective.
Page: And so effective in getting under Trump’s skin.
Ali Vitali of NBC News chipped in with another definition of Democratic “freedom”: Lots of abortion.
Vitali: Can I also just add that word, freedom, you know where it started being successful? In the early referendums on abortion and reproductive access. Democrats found success in red states because they were able to reclaim that word for people party aside who say I just wanna do what I wanna do, people who just want to do what they don't want the governor -- government involved. That transcends partisanship. Millions of people turned out for a race that was about abortion. And to me, that spoke volumes.
Page: Mind your own damn business. [Vitali points an approving finger] That is the essence of [indecipherable]…
Since when did the Democratic Party become the party of less government interference in people’s lives? Gov. Walz’s draconian COVID policies alone should scrap any portrait of Walz as some kind of freedom fighter.
National Review’s Rich Lowry has more on the Democrat’s new band of fake libertarians.
This segment was brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular.
