Truncated quotes from both sides now: “with a swipe of my pen”
Please watch this ad:
?HOLY SMOKES?
This is the single-most devastating ad for Kamala Harris.
Career ending.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) October 26, 2024
Horrifying, right? As far as I can tell, about 90% of the ad is factual; Harris did arrest and prosecute some parents of truant children in California – twenty in all. In addition:
However, as the San Francisco District Attorney, Harris sponsored a state Senate bill — SB 1317 — that was introduced by state Sen. Mark Leno, who is also from San Francisco. The state bill was modeled on her truancy initiative in San Francisco, and did result in some parents being jailed.
So it’s not that part of the ad I want to dispute – it’s the interspersion of a speech Harris gave about “with a swipe of my pen.” You can see that part from 1:19 to 1:55. I had read about that “swipe” speech some time ago, and it occurred to me that it actually might have been a speech about the dangers of prosecutorial powers (it’s from 2019). And sure enough, when I looked it up, I discovered this sort of thing:
We found that rather than bragging about her prosecutorial power, Harris was discussing the importance of leaders using power responsibly because of the potential for harm if power is misused. She said that it was something she realized early in her 20s when she started work as a prosecutor.
In her 2019 speech, Harris sought to describe then-President Donald Trump as using his power irresponsibly. The viral clip ends before a crucial part of her speech.
“And I was just a lowly deputy DA,” she went on to say to laughter from the audience. “Yet we have a person in the White House who holds the office of president of the United States, who does not fully, or even partially, understand what it means to have power,” she said of Trump. “When you truly understand what it means to be powerful, you understand that the greatest measure of your strength is not who you beat down, it is who you lift up.”
You don’t have to agree with Harris’ comments about Trump to understand that her speech was meant to be a caution about power, and that in the ad it’s the right using the technique of the truncated quote in order to mislead. This is something the left does constantly and all-too-effectively, in particular against Trump but also against any other GOP candidate they see as vulnerable to it. The right uses the truncated quote much less often, but it still uses it at times.
It’s wrong to do it when anyone does it, but once one side uses it, what’s the other to do? “We can’t play by Marquess of Queensbury rules” and all that. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its boots.”
So how do you fight such techniques – or any other duplicity – effectively if you play by the rules against an opponent who doesn’t? Must you fight fire with fire? Does airing the truth really work? Isn’t the truth always just getting its boots on?
I actually think that this particular ad would work nearly as well with just the truancy evidence, and that there’s enough footage of Kamala saying awful things without the need to use the “with a swipe of my pen” quotes. But the “swipe” footage intensifies the rest, and it must have felt like a nearly irresistible temptation to make use of it.
“truncated quote” or not — ‘With the Swipe of my Pen’ – is a great description of just *ONE* of the many issues involved with living under the Rule of Law. Excellent ad, IMHO!
Thanks for the clarification, but Biden and Harris are leading lawfare, and colluding with state AG to do exactly what she describes – against not only Trump, but Pro-life advocates, and the J6 political prisoners. Only Trump has the $ to fight, us normies are shix-outa-luck.
Shoot, they nailed Generals and Trump’s Lawyers with this tactic.
Karmi:
I agree that it very effectively highlights the extraordinary power welded by prosecutors.
neo’s integrity here is one of the reasons I read her. I saw the ad and did not notice the interspersed material…
As for the truncated out-of-context quote, you go looking for this you will find it everywhere, on the Left and on the Right, and you will find this is not the first time it was done on the Right (as neo acknowledges).
Honestly, isn’t it a better strategy to attack Kamala Harris for her overall soft-on-crime policies than her sometimes tough-on-crime actions as a prosecutor? I see the right trying to have it both ways these days.
Good ad, best in her own words.
MAHA definitely took the “swipe of my pen” statement out of context, but when you realize how conscious she is of a prosecutor’s power and then you see how she chose to use it, isn’t it even worse?
Some, or any substantiation, of the claim made by The Professor would be refreshing. The Professor goes beyond what neo said, implying that Republicans are no better than the left when it comes to lying by misdirection.
But of course The Great Orange Whale is a known faschist and Nazi, so whatever it takes to save “our democracy” is indeed necessary.
I’ll feel bad about the right taking quotes out of context when the Democrats and MSM acknowledge that Kamala and Biden have spent the last seven years slandering Trump about his Charlottesville remarks.
And even if her “swipe of the pen” comment is contextualized, it still highlights how she acted, and will act, as opposed to what she said in that instance. The ad shows how she used her discretion against those families, just because she could, and laughed about it. The “concern” she expressed in the “swipe of the pen” comment only highlights what a phony she is.
It’s an excellent question; how does the side playing by the rules respond
to the opposing side that does not play by the rules?
If one basketball team abides by the rules and the other side plays basketball as if rugby rules prevail, should the “honest” side just continue as if all is OK and thereby claim the moral high ground?
Recall that the millions shoved into Hitler’s gas chambers had the moral high ground.
The only choice is to fight fire with fire. To do otherwise is suicidal.
One could argue that in the end, the “honest” side will prevail, thus one should not stoop to the dirt bag level of the opponent.
The problem with this approach is that “in the end” could be many, many years into the future and/or the only party left standing are the dirt bags.
The dumbpublicans need to fight just as dirty as the demonkrats, but they generally do not. This is one reason the dumbpublicans repeatedly get their ass kicked.
Except she had pledged to neutralize the second amendment and other steps by fiat,
The trump eo were firmly based on statutes, whereas say obamas are crafted from thin air
@John Tyler:It’s an excellent question; how does the side playing by the rules respond
to the opposing side that does not play by the rules?
It’s an old problem, traditionally solved by communication accompanied by credible threat as deterrence, and where necessary reprisals, similarly to how the norms against chemical and biological warfare and mistreating POWs are enforced.
I will enjoy the Left and its media adjuncts explaining at length why taking something Harris said at one time and sticking it in at another time pretending it’s part of the same statement, like they just did on 60 Minutes and defended, is wrong.
In the meantime, the Left screaming “no fair it’s out of context” at THIS ad will ensure that it gets seen by many more people, which is a strategy they have followed deliberately themselves. And they can say well AKSHUALLY Harris only said the part about using her gang and homicide staff for arresting parents and putting them in jail, instead of gangs and murderers.
For every anti-Trump ad they apply their newfound scruples to, we can edit one of ours accordingly.
“she had pledged to neutralize the second amendment and other steps by fiat”
If she is ‘declared’ the winner, she may issue her fiat and then experience what happens when she orders it to be enforced.
As Orwell pointed out long ago, “So much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don’t even know that fire is hot.”
Immature ‘adults’ who deny reality and play with ‘fire’ will sooner or later get burnt and the deeper the denial, the more intense the resulting ‘fire’.
“The Cheating Begins: Massive Electoral Fraud Uncovered in PA”
https://thenewamerican.com/video/tv/the-cheating-begins-massive-electoral-fraud-uncovered-in-pa/
I agree with the condemnation of taking statements out of context for polemics. But: Biden has, with the swipe of a pen, severely damaged the energy sector, wiped out any vestige of border control, and “forgiven” debts which he had no power to forgive. Kamala, when asked, said that she couldn’t think of anything she would have done differently. So the “swipe of the pen” criticism isn’t too far off.
@Shadow:Honestly, isn’t it a better strategy to attack Kamala Harris for her overall soft-on-crime policies than her sometimes tough-on-crime actions as a prosecutor? I see the right trying to have it both ways these days.
There’s “crime” as represented by gangs and violence and illegal immigration, and there’s “crime” as represented by parents whose kids miss school or don’t want their kids getting sexual reassignment surgery or those who pray outside abortion clinics.
No one on the Right is criticizing Harris for the gangbangers she locked up. She took people off gang crime and put them on parents of truant children, that’s what we’re criticizing her for.
We’ve already seen in the UK how the government cracks down hard on nice middle class people for Facebook comments or public silent prayer and lets real criminals get away with everything. The Soviet Union classified criminals as “socially friendly elements” and let them occupy privileged positions in prisons and camps, where they could prey upon the political prisoners.
It’s an old tactic of repressive governments, and it’s safer for the cops, too.
So the left isn’t playing with the same set of rules? Their rule is Whatever it takes to win. See Harry Reid and Mittens.
IIRC the left really didn’t like it when McConnel used the rules, changed by the Democrats, against leftist policies. Karma is a …..
But this time they want to zap the first three amendments to the constitution (the last just in case)
Robinson called out the travesty of rotherdam and rochdale, so of course hes a target of the dhimmi state
She had the power, and she used it. Why is she using an example of her own abuse of power to attack Donald Trump?
It underscores that you have to examine everything. Nobody, no party, can be exempted from being held to account for what they say, what they represent. Misrepresentations for the sake of arguing a point – like this one, with the ‘stroke of the pen’ comment being taken out of context – must always be identified and held to account. Whoever wins this upcoming election: the oversight and pushback are just beginning.
@Christopher B:Why is she using an example of her own abuse of power to attack Donald Trump?
She didn’t. It was two different speeches. In one speech she bragged about cracking down on parents as a prosecutor. The other speech she said her experience as a prosecutor showed her how easy it would be for Trump to abuse his power. neo is pointing out, citing Politifact, that the two speeches were combined together.
Unfortunately Politifact can’t seem to say Biden and Harris were wrong to say Trump called Nazis “fine people” without a lot of throat-clearing and yes-buttery. (I can’t find where they fact checked it and rated it “false” if they ever did; their search function is terrible.)