Kamala unfettered
By 
The Atlantic has published an excerpt from Kamala Harris’s forthcoming memoir, which is sharper and more candid than you would expect of the genre:
I said “the Plan” with exaggerated emphasis and air quotes. Fox News, the New York Post, and Newsmax went wild, claiming I’d faked a French accent. This was total nonsense, but the White House seemed glad to let reporting about my “gaffe” overwhelm the significant thaw in foreign relations I’d achieved.
Worse, I often learned that the president’s staff was adding fuel to negative narratives that sprang up around me. One narrative that took a stubborn hold was that I had a “chaotic” office and unusually high staff turnover during my first year.
[…]
Joe was already polling badly on the age issue, with roughly 75 percent of voters saying he was too old to be an effective president. Then he started taking on water for his perceived blank check to Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza.
When polls indicated that I was getting more popular, the people around him didn’t like the contrast that was emerging.
In Selma, Alabama, at the commemoration of Bloody Sunday, when civil-rights marchers were attacked and beaten once they’d crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, I gave a strong speech on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Desperate people had been shot when they swarmed a food truck, and I spoke of families reduced to eating leaves or animal feed, women prematurely giving birth with little or no medical care, and children dying from malnutrition and dehydration. I reiterated my strong support for Israel’s security and called on Hamas to release the hostages and accept the cease-fire agreement then on the table. I also called on Israel for greater access to aid. It was a speech that had been vetted and approved by the White House and the National Security Council. It went viral, and the West Wing was displeased. I was castigated for, apparently, delivering it too well.
Their thinking was zero-sum: If she’s shining, he’s dimmed. None of them grasped that if I did well, he did well. That given the concerns about his age, my visible success as his vice president was vital. It would serve as a testament to his judgment in choosing me and reassurance that if something happened, the country was in good hands. My success was important for him.
His team didn’t get it.
I don’t think it’s news that Biden did not set Harris up to succeed, starting with giving her the politically toxic issue of immigration to work on. And it should go without saying that this behavior is indefensible — if you are president and would turn 82 before a hypothetical second term would begin, it is absolutely imperative that you work on building up the person who is overwhelmingly likely to be the nominee if you do not run for re-election or are forced to step down. Instead, Biden saw his vice-president gaining popularity as a threat. Which in a nutshell is why although his presidency accomplished some good things it is going to be seen as a major failure historically.