TEVI TROY: Shapiro's revenge once again reveals Kamala Harris' incompetence
When Kamala Harris wrote in her memoir "107 Days" that Pennsylvania governor – and fellow Democrat – Josh Shapiro insisted on being "in the room for every decision" if he were to become vice president, an angry Shapiro characterized her account as "bullsh--" and "blatant lies." But Shapiro’s own forthcoming memoir demonstrates that he is not done getting back at Harris. His book includes the explosive and damaging tale that in the Harris team’s hostile vice-presidential vetting process, Shapiro was asked if he had ever been an Israeli agent, bringing to mind the ugly association of Jews and dual loyalty.
The story is harmful to Harris in a number of ways. It reinforces the existing impression that she and her team were clumsy, but also adds the dimension that they may have been antisemitic. Indeed, even Joe Biden’s former envoys on antisemitism have denounced the Harris team’s questioning as "horrifying." Shapiro’s devastating tale is a reminder of Harris’ failure to understand a basic rule of life in the political big leagues: Don’t dish it out in your memoirs and get caught unawares when your targets respond.
In the modern, staff memoir-writing era, there have been numerous instances of aggrieved officials hitting back hard against memoirs that attacked people ostensibly on the same political team. A great example of this kind of revenge happened in the wake of Arthur Schlesinger’s Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his time in the Kennedy administration, "A Thousand Days." Some in the Kennedy camp were annoyed with Schlesinger’s account, including former first lady Jackie Kennedy, who told Schlesinger that he had gotten "too personal" with some of his revelations. Even more irked was Kennedy’s secretary of state, Dean Rusk. Schlesinger wrote that Kennedy had been thinking of firing Rusk and that the "Buddha-like" Rusk would say little in White House meetings. Rusk, who was still the secretary of state for Lyndon Johnson when the book came out, let it be known that he was only silent around Schlesinger because Schlesinger was a notorious gossip on the Georgetown cocktail party circuit.
Sometimes, responses to a book can be less ad hoc and more systematic. Charlie Kolb, a domestic policy aide to President George H.W. Bush, wrote a critical memoir called "White House Daze," which came out in 1993, after Bush had lost to Bill Clinton. The memoir was particularly harsh on Kolb's boss, Roger Porter, as well as Bush’s Office of Management and Budget Director Dick Darman, with whom Kolb had clashed in the White House. Bush staffer Tom Scully, who had been an aide to Darman, dismissed the very idea of Kolb having had the access for writing a revealing book, saying, "Charlie was so cut out of everything that for him to be in a position to write a book was a joke." Scully was not alone in being unhappy with Kolb, as the Bush alumni collectively froze Kolb out. In 1999, years after the administration ended, Scully – who had endorsed Kolb’s hiring to begin with – recounted that "Nobody’s talked to Charlie in seven years that I know of. He’s the most unpopular guy as a result of that book."
Unlike the Kolb book, George Stephanopoulos' "All Too Human" came out while President Clinton was still in office. Stephanopoulos’ revealing memoir called out the sitting president’s behavior in the Monica Lewinsky affair as "stupid, selfish, and self-destructive." Clinton staffers responded to Stephanopoulos' best-selling book both on and off the record. Anonymous aides called Stephanopoulos a "backstabber" and an "ingrate." Clinton ally Mandy Grunwald also sniped that if Clinton hadn’t given him the "opportunity of a lifetime," he wouldn’t have become a "multimillion-dollar book writer and commentator."
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Another damaging memoir that came out during an administration was Scott McLellan’s "What Happened." McLellan made a number of criticisms of President George W. Bush, writing that Bush "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," and that he engaged in "self-deception." McLellan also called the invasion of Iraq a "serious strategic blunder," and claimed that the Bush White House made "a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed."
The Bush White House responded with a seemingly organized effort to dismiss McLellan’s book.
After the memoir came out, multiple Bush allies criticized McLellan with similarly crafted talking points. Senior Adviser Karl Rove said, "This doesn’t sound like Scott. It really doesn’t. Not the Scott McClellan I’ve known for a long time."
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These types of pushback are, of course, fair game from those targeted in a negative memoir. John Bolton probably expected President Trump to criticize him and even call him a "liar" following Bolton’s critical memoir of his time in the first Trump administration, "The Room Where It Happened." He probably did not expect Trump’s second term, in which Bolton is being investigated for misuse of classified information, an investigation that probably would not have happened but for the book.
Memoir writers do not have to take people on by name, as Harris did to Shapiro. Sometimes memoirists call out anonymous antagonists. Examples of this include John Podhoretz, who created composite characters in his George H.W. Bush book "Hell of a Ride," and Condoleezza Rice, whose memoir of the George W. Bush years, "No Higher Honor," is replete with over 20 uses of anonymous characters. This could be a way to spare someone’s feelings, but it could also minimize the odds of someone taking revenge. When someone is criticized by name, as Shapiro was, the odds of blowback are much higher, as Harris has now learned.
Memoirs are part of the game, but Harris should have known that taking on a savvy player like Shapiro was not without cost. If she had paid more attention to history, she might have been aware of the risks she was taking in calling out Shapiro. Her lack of awareness of what other politicos have done in response to poor memoir depictions is just one more sign of her lack of aptitude for politics – and left her vulnerable to Shapiro’s revenge.