On April 4, President Barack Obama unintentionally created a stir during a Democratic National Committee fundraising lunch in Atherton, California.
Referring to California Attorney General Kamala Harris, he said:
“You have to be careful to, first of all, say she is brilliant and she is dedicated and she is tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake. She also happens to be by far the best-looking attorney general in the country.”
Kamala Harris
It was a compliment that was immediately interpreted–by some–as a sexist insult.
According to the Politically Correct crowd, even complimentary comments about a female politician’s physical appearance can diminish her accomplishments.
“It’s even more so when the person–like Kamala Harris–is holding a traditionally-male position like attorney general, the top law enforcement officer in the state,” said Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.
“That’s just what Obama did by including a comment about her appearance,” Walsh said. “I doubt if he’d say that about a male attorney general.”
According to White House press secretary Jay Carney, Obama called Harris that same evening evening to apologize for his comments.
“He fully recognizes the challenges women continue to face in the workplace and that they should not be judged based on appearance,” Carney said the next day. “They’re old friends. He certainly regretted that [his comments] caused a distraction.”
And Harris reportedly accepted Obama’s apology.
“The Attorney General and the President have been friends for many years,” Harris spokesman Gil Duran said in an April 5 statement. “They had a great conversation yesterday and she strongly supports him.”
If, in fact, Harris was offended by Obama’s compliment, she has a very thin skin indeed.
She could have been far more offended had her Republican opponent for Attorney General dared to tell the truth about her.
Steve Cooley, running against Harris in 2010, had a serious issue to raise against her. But he didn’t have the guts to do it.
From 2004 to 2011, Harris had served as District Attorney for San Francisco. In total defiance of the law, she set up a secret unit to keep even convicted illegal aliens out of prison.
Her program, called Back on Track, trained them for jobs they could not legally hold.
This was a flagrant violation of Federal immigration law.
One such alumnus was Alexander Izaguirre, an illegal alien who had pled guilty to selling cocaine. Four months later, in July, 2008, he assaulted Amanda Kiefer, a legal San Francisco resident.
Snatching her purse, he jumped into an SUV, then tried to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and a driver laughing.
The driver slammed on the brakes, sending Kiefer flying onto the pavement and fracturing her skull.
The program, Back on Track, became a centerpiece of Harris’ campaign for state Attorney General.
Until she was questioned by the Los Angeles Times about the Izaguirre case, Harris had never publicly admitted that the program included illegal aliens.
Harris claimed she first learned that illegal aliens were training for jobs only after Izaguirre was arrested for the Kiefer assault.
Harris said it was a “flaw in the design” of the program to let illegal aliens into the program. “I believe we fixed it,” she told the Times.
Harris never released statistics on how many illegal aliens were included since the program started in 2005.
She said that after Izaguirre’s arrest she never asked–or learned–how many illegal aliens were in Back on Track.
When Harris learned that illegal aliens were enrolled, she allowed those who were following the rules to finish the program and have their criminal records expunged.
It is not the duty of local law enforcement, she said, to enforce Federal immigration laws.
So much for her oath to faithfully defend the Constitution of the United States and that of the state of California “against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
From 2005 to 2009, 113 admitted drug dealers graduated from Back on Track. Another 99 were kicked off the program for failing to meet the requirements. They were sentenced under their guilty plea, the D.A.’s office claimed.
Harris told the Times that graduates of Back on Track were less likely than other offenders to commit crimes again. But her spokeswoman refused to offer detailed statistics to back this up.
When Harris became San Francisco District Attorney, she vowed she would “never charge the death penalty.” Her opposition to capital punishment would be better-suited to a public defender.
Meanwhile, Amanda Kiefer left California. Interviewed by the Times, she said she could not understand why San Francisco police and prosecutors would allow convicted illegal aliens back onto the streets.
“If they’re committing crimes,” she said, “I think there’s something wrong that they’re not being deported.”
It’s a sentiment that law-abiding Americans agree with. And it should go double for those who are charged with enforcing the law.
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