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Politics has the magical ability to transform enemies into friends

Ruben Navarrette Jr. on

SAN DIEGO -- This is why people hate politics.

Ever notice how quickly once-bitter political rivals seem to be able to forgive and forget, and become the best of friends? They go from attacking each other to linking arms against a member of the rival party.

One minute, they're saying how this other person is not up to the task of leading. The next minute, they're following that person.

In the latest example, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker -- two African-American senators who, just a few months ago, were themselves running for president and using Joe Biden as a punching bag -- have now endorsed the former vice president as their choice to fill the office they once sought.

Last June, Harris stood on a debate stage and hammered Biden over his coziness over the years with Southern segregationists in the Senate and his opposition to mandatory court-ordered busing in the 1970s.

Harris recalled: "There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools, and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me."

 

The point that she was trying to get across was this: If Biden wasn't himself a racist, then, at the very least, he appeared comfortable around actual racists as well as willing to tolerate the vestiges of racism.

At a subsequent debate a few months later, Booker had his shot at Biden. He used it to attack Biden for saying that he opposed legalization of marijuana. "I thought you might have been high when you said it," Booker joked. The New Jersey senator also blasted Biden for anti-crime polices that "destroyed communities like mine" through harsh penalties and mass incarceration.

When Biden tried to deflect the criticism back onto Booker -- a former mayor of Newark, New Jersey -- for allegedly letting the city's police department violate people's civil rights, Booker snapped at Biden: "You're dipping into the Kool-Aid and you don't even know the flavor."

Now we're supposed to believe that Harris, Booker and Biden are all just one happy family? What about the legitimate issues that were raised amid all that mudslinging?

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