Confirmation bias may be the most destructive bias of them all, creeping into the best of minds and casing them to malfunction wildly, and, in tragic cases like that of Basil Smilke, causing them to say and do things that destroy their credibility while making them look ridiculous. This is the bias that makes human beings see and believe what they want to see and believe when a conflicting reality is right in front of them.

I actually did a Danny Thomas spit-take when I read Smilke’s opinion column on CNN’s website titled, “Kamala Harris is not a liability. She may be Democrats’ best weapon.” I got a mouthful of coffee on Spuds, who was lying on me, and he was not pleased. Reading the headline, I was prepared to see that the crazy thing had been authored by a student at Madame Louisa’s Home for the Bewildered, but no. Smilke appears to be well credentialed and to have all his faculties, not that being a professor and director of the Public Policy Program at the Roosevelt House Public Policy Institute of Hunter College is the highest step on the academic ladder, but hey: Hunter has more credibility than Harvard, and it doesn’t allow plagiarism.

Now, I recognize that Smilke is also a Democratic Party political operative and consultant, so there is an alternate explanation for the piece that doesn’t make him look like a confirmation bias-infected moron. He could be lying to the public and to Kamala Harris in the hopes of getting a job. That would be unethical, of course, but then he’s a Democratic Party political operative and  consultant.

His opinion piece—and why would even CNN publish something this absurd?—reads like it was written under the influence of some powerful mind-altering drug. Here is his argument:

• Harris has been unfairly savaged by Republicans and conservatives (and a substantial number of Democrats, but he doesn’t mention that) because she is a black woman. It’s all sexism and racism. “Biden’s second-in-command, a former US senator and California attorney general, is being dragged down by a barrage of tropes, the kinds of chatter that many women and racial minorities frequently confront in politics.”

• Biden’s administration has been a spectacular success, but Republican “narratives” have obscured his triumph from the easily gulled public. “[T]he nitpicky critiques have only served to obscure the public’s appreciation of what has been a highly successful administration.” Nitpicky: you know, like illegal immigrants pouring across the southern border, prices wildly higher than when Biden took office, the National Debt out of control, crime rotting major cities, the public school system being revealed as a leftist indoctrination machine,  an outbreak of anti-Semitism on college campuses and in Democrat-run cities, and the administration openly calling half the population “clear and present dangers” to democracy.
• There’s no reason to think that Joe Biden, if he is elected for a second term and takes office at the ripe old age on 82, won’t finish his second term still able to solve a Rubik’s cube in a few minutes. “As some Republican trolls suggest that a vote for Biden could be a vote for Harris, who is 59, opponents of the President think they can attack him by aiming barbs at her.” Actuarial tables show that an 82 year old man has a life expectancy of a little more than 6 years. Even if Biden had appeared to be teeming with energy and youth the past three years, that’s cutting it mighty close. Harris would take office as the VP most likely to take over the Presidency in U.S. history.
• Harris is an asset because she’s “of-color” True, the professor says, Kamala is very unpopular “[b]ut a New York Times/Siena College polls of battleground states released in November showed that Harris was considerably more popular than Biden among nonwhite voters and voters under the age of 30, segments of the American public whose support is indispensable if the president is to win reelection.” In other words, she’s not the worst thing, Rationalization #22. The professor skips over the part where he needs to prove that any one of about 50 other running mates wouldn’t make a stronger ticket.
• She’ll be an asset because…she has to be an asset. Or something: “Meanwhile, the vice president can offer an aspirational economic message to these young voters whose enthusiasm is blunted by an inability to financially plan for their future. It’s not a panacea, but it is an important overture and a lot is riding on her success.”  Harris can’t put three words together without babbling or giggling. She couldn’t win a single delegate while running for President in 2020, even as the left-wing media was actively promoting her. The respect for her skills has declined since that debacle.
• She’s black, or at least black enough.

I would not be surprised to learn that the Harris camp paid Smilke to write this. I believe that any opinion piece that has been paid for by a potential beneficiary of the position put forward must disclose that fact, and that the publisher is obligated to make sure that is done. At least if it’s a lie, bought and paid for, Smilke hasn’t proven that students unfortunate enough to be in his class are risking having their critical thinking skills unraveled.

Still, I believe the most likely explanation for the essay is that Democrats are trapped: they know they can’t dump Harris, just as Biden has been unwilling to can his terrible “of-color” paid liar, Karine Jean-Pierre, and just as Harvard can’t jettison its incompetent, plagiarizing president. Smilke, good Democrat that he is, has convinced himself that Kamala Harris isn’t what she is—an embarrassment—because he has to.