https://www.wsj.com/articles/kamala-harriss-debate-victory-proves-pyrrhic-11562799747
Memories of the first Democratic debates recede, though echoes remain of one bizarrely magnified event—Sen. Kamala Harris’s sustained assault on front-runner Joe Biden. Over the weekend Mr. Biden issued an apology to those who had been pained when he recalled his amicable relations with archsegregationists early in his Senate days. Ms. Harris’s response made it clear that she had no intention of allowing that night of glory on the debate stage to fade—a moment that changed the world and her place in it, according to a fevered commentariat.
It was good that Mr. Biden recognized the impact of his words, she said. But “we cannot rewrite history.”
Neither can she undo the impact of her own comments during the debate—a histrionic performance likely to cost her more than the donations and improved poll numbers that she gained. She had mounted her offensive against Mr. Biden days after Sen. Cory Booker delivered a lengthy harangue focused on his pain at hearing the former vice president speak of his ability to get on with the likes of Mississippi Sen. James Eastland, who retired in 1978.
No reasonable person could have doubted Mr. Biden’s meaning—that he had in mind a time when politicians understood the value of working with everyone to achieve results. That idea Lyndon B. Johnson understood so well—that had enabled him, as Senate majority leader and president, to flatter, arm-twist and otherwise seduce opponents of civil-rights legislation into allowing it to pass.
No one considering Mr. Booker’s abysmal standing in the polls would have much doubt, either, about the impetus that had driven his operatic display, which became increasingly vague even as the senator added detail. It wasn’t that Mr. Biden was a racist. Mr. Booker hadn’t meant that at all, he insisted. He merely wanted an apology for all the pain Mr. Biden had caused.