I get why the rabid dogs on the Republican right have been in high dudgeon over Kamala Harris’ decision to spend $500 of her own money on some Paris cookware. Maybe if she’d gone to an all-American gun shop and dropped a grand on an AR-15, they might’ve been fine with that. But a Black woman buying kitchen stuff in effete-elite France? That’s right up there on the scandal meter with the Black president’s tan suit.
The job of veep has always been thankless – he (and now she) is compelled to play second banana, doing whatever duties the boss deigns to delegate, struggling for identity in a post that puts a premium on loyalty – and it was no surprise earlier this month when CNN reported that “the vice president herself has told several confidants she feels constrained in what she’s able to do politically.”
Well, duh. CNN framed its story as a big scoop, seemingly oblivious to American history. During JFK’s presidency, to cite just one example, underling LBJ felt like a neutered bull, and the New Frontier people laughed at him behind his back; Jackie Kennedy called him “Colonel Cornpone.” In the late ’80s, people called Reagan veep George Bush a “wimp.” Heck, when we trek back to the 19th century, we learn that Grover Cleveland’s first veep died after only eight months on the job, and who among us can name the man without Googgling? Even worse, Ulysses S. Grant’s first veep dropped dead at a train station, and nobody knew who he was until somebody searched the body for ID.
So it’s no surprise that Kamala Harris is taking flack – it goes with the territory – but nobody dishes out stupider flack than your basic right-wing hack.
Some genius at Fox News posted a breathless story the other day on the network’s propaganda website, divulging that Harris “spent over $500 on cookware in a Parisian shop amid rising inflation and economic uncertainty at home…dropping 516 euros on pots and pans.” Oh the inhumanity. And the GOP’s official website announced that “While Americans are struggling to pay more than EVER for the holidays, Kamala Harris is out buying a $375 pot.”
But, I dunno, is that really a lot of money?
I seem to recall that Melania Trump spent $75,000 on a Birkin bag and $51,000 on a Dolce & Gabbana jacket, that Donald spent $10,000 on a painting of himself (using money from one of his charities), and that we taxpayers spent $141,000,000 footing the bill for Trump’s golf trips. Indeed, if Vice President Harris were to spend $500 a month on cookware for the next 260 months, only then would she equal the $130,000 that Trump spent (using Michael Cohen’s money) to keep Stormy Daniels quiet about their lousy sex.
But never mind the Trumps (please!). Anyone who thinks that $500 for cookware is wildly lavish clearly needs to get out more.
The destination doesn’t need to be Paris; Crate and Barrel, a favorite of the middle class, will do just fine. That’s where a set of stainless steel cookware lists for $1400, and is currently on sale for $800. Or we could head over to tonier Williams Sonoma and ogle their Le Creuset cookware, which lists for $1320 and sells for $1000.
Heck, I recently prepped for winter by spending $500 on some fleece-lined flannel shirts and fleece-lined jeans at L. L. Bean – so I suppose that puts me in Kamala’s camp as a smug-arrogant-elitist who supposedly can’t fathom the struggles of Real Americans. But at least she and I spent our own money.
John Nance Garner, one of FDR’s veeps, famously compared his job to “a bucket of warm piss.” But at least he wasn’t dogged day and night by troglodytes on social media. She supposedly “faked” a French accent while in France (in truth, she speaks some French, having once attended a French language school in Montreal), and she has what the New York Post calls a “now-notorious laugh…shaking her shoulders.” If laughter and cookware disqualify a woman for high office, I guess it’s game over for this veep.