My Take | Kamala Harris’ White House odyssey is stranger than fiction
- Can the US vice-president take on the now virtually unassailable Donald Trump? Who knows? But she’s a sure bet on there being plenty of comic relief between now and November
She’s a US senator who becomes a vice-president after a failed bid to run for president. She spends much of her time in the White House being ignored and disregarded by people with real power. But things take a turn for the worse for the president and suddenly, despite her complete lack of interest or knowledge about basic policies, she is offered a path into the Oval Office. But when she tries to win the presidency in her own right, she predictably loses.
Oh, sorry, I wasn’t talking about US Vice-President Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden’s heir apparent who will now likely take on the formidable task of battling the virtually unassailable Donald Trump in the coming election.
I was just paraphrasing the plot summary of Wikipedia’s entry on Veep, the long-running satirical TV series starring the inimitably funny Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Vice-President Selina Meyer.
For a long time, I thought Veep was just very funny. Now, I think it’s prophecy. I was really sad when the series ended. But real life now may be even better.
As good as the comic dialogues and sometimes monologues in Veep were, Harris’ speeches and comments over the years are hard to beat.
Here are some gems and pearls of wisdom for the ages.