Oh noes! Heaven forfend that a political candidate answer for their positions from four whole years ago!

Side note: Has anyone at the New York Times covered a political campaign before? Because usually the idea is to debate policy positions taken publicly as an indicator of what might take place when a candidate wins. Well, usually, but we'll get to the NYT's modus operandi in a moment. 

Yesterday afternoon, the Paper of Record took great offense at Republicans who want to highlight Kamala Harris' record in the upcoming months. That's called "weaponization" rather than "accountability" when Republicans do it, apparently:

When she ran for president the first time, Kamala Harris darted to the left as she fought for attention from the Democratic Party’s liberal wing.

After she dropped out, social and racial justice protests swept across the country in the summer of 2020, and Ms. Harris joined other Democrats in supporting progressive ideas during what appeared to be a national realignment on criminal justice.

One presidential cycle later, with Vice President Harris less than a week into another race for the White House, video clips of her old statements and interviews are being weaponized as Republicans aim to define her as a left-wing radical who is out of step with swing voters.

Before we get to the ridiculous notion that highlighting and comparing public policy positions in an election campaign is "weaponization," let's see how the Gray Lady treats other critiques of public statements. For instance, they began reporting last week about J.D. Vance's poor choice of words on childless women a few days ago. Did they report that Democrats had "weaponized" those comments? Nope.

How about Donald Trump's Access Hollywood comments from 2005, which emerged in the last weeks of the 2016 campaign? The NYT gave that plenty of coverage, but not one of the articles accused Democrats of weaponizing the tape by making it an issue despite it being 11 years old at the time. 

But at least the scrutiny of those remarks are understandable in an electoral context. What about the 2012 campaign, when a bullying incident from Mitt Romney's teen years at a prep school got used by Democrats against him? Again, the NYT covered the 'scandal,' without even a hint that Democrats weaponized an decades-old incident that had nothing to do with policy as a way to demonize Romney. The same can be said about another irrelevant incident involving a poor choice with a dog and a carrier, which the New York Times covered by noting that "political commentators and opponents have seized on it as a window into Mr. Romney’s character." Not a peep about weaponization.

Funny how it's a "character study" when Democrat oppo researchers dig up embarrassing apolitical moments from Republicans' teen and young adult years, and it's "weaponization" when it comes to Democrat candidates' actual positions on policy.

That's funny-peculiar, not funny-hahhah.

The NYT uses "weaponized" because Harris now says she's reversed all of her 2019 policy positions. Trust her!

The Harris campaign will rebut most of Republicans’ attacks by arguing that they are exaggerating or lying about her record, said a campaign official briefed on the plans who was not authorized to discuss them publicly. Her campaign plans to lean into her record as a local prosecutor and state attorney general to burnish her image as a candidate with deep ties to law enforcement.

In addition to changing her position on fracking, campaign officials said she now backed the Biden administration’s budget requests for increased funding for border enforcement; no longer supported a single-payer health insurance program; and echoed Mr. Biden’s call for banning assault weapons but not a requirement to sell them to the federal government.

Gee, how has the NYT handled it when Republicans suddenly reverse all their previously held positions? Again, let us hearken back to the heady days of 2012, when Romney shifted on abortion and health care, for which the New York Times crucified him. NYT Magazine ran a story which is not available in its archive headlined, "The Mind of a Flip-Flopper." 

Can we expect the NYT to resurrect that headline in covering Harris' much more comprehensive policy reversals from just five years ago? Oh, let's not always see the same hands ...

Finally, there's more to this than just demonstrating how deep in the bag the "Paper of Record" is for Democrats. If we can't hold politicians accountable for past positions -- including positions they've never actually committed to changing in any public forum -- then what should we discuss? Excluding policy from election debates means nothing more than an endless series of character attacks, which the Times purports to disdain. 

If Harris can't handle criticism over her radical agenda from just five years ago, then perhaps the problem isn't "weaponization" at all. It might just be that Democrats short-circuited actual democracy to anoint a talentless hack as their party nominee, and that the New York Times damned well knows it.

Update: Ben Shapiro helpfully lists the flip-flops that the NYT seems to swallow as entirely genuine. YMMV, of course. 

Positions on which Kamala Harris has supposedly reversed herself:

Banning fracking ❌
Assault weapons mandatory buyback ❌
Ending private health insurance ❌
Decriminalizing illegal border crossings ❌
Bailing out rioters ❌
Defunding the police ❌
Jailing marijuana offenders ❌…

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) July 30, 2024