Kamala Harris, American Courtesan

It makes its own kind of sense. Pondering the question of what might qualify Kamala Harris to function as president of the United States, notable chef, host of a televised cooking show, Padma Lakshmi declares that Harris is qualified because she knows how to cook.

Look at it objectively. Surely, it makes good sense to think that the queen of word salads would know her way around a kitchen. 

To be fair, Lakshmi opens her New York Times essay by claiming that Kamala’s record of public service qualifies her for the presidency. Were it not for the simple fact that much of that record was garnered by sleeping with powerful men, we might be impressed. As is, we are not.

Effectively, knowing how to cook does not qualify you for anything other than activities, jobs, careers and hobbies that involve food. Since cooking and food preparation and feeding a family take place within the home, not within the marketplace or the battlefield, knowing how to cook does not make you more suited to be commander in chief. 

Be clear about the fact that commander in chief is not a variation on commander in chef.

To be fair, you can cook at home for your family or you can cook in a restaurant, as part of a business. They are not the same, even if they use the same ingredients. 

Just in case you think I have distorted Lakshmi’s vacuous thinking, here it is:

What qualities make for a good cook? Which make for a good president? In a lot of cases, they overlap. Cooking well requires organization, attention to detail, patience — and the impulse to bring people together. In a divided country, these qualities can help Ms. Harris be a good, even a great, president.

Kamala may not know anything about policy. She might not understand economics. She may not know how to command armies, even armies of bureaucrats. But, if the end product tastes good, isn’t that all that matters? 

Besides, if you are hungry, you might not even notice.

As though that were not bad enough, Lakshmi explains that Kamala represents the triumph of more feminine values. Cooks are nurturers, she explains. They give care and comfort and help create community.

Obviously, the Biden administration policy toward illegal migrants smacks of motherliness. They want us to mother the world, to feed the world, to do good for the world. Invite all of the world’s hungry into the country and feed them for free. What could be more motherly.

When it comes to creating community, the issue is not the quality of the food, but the ritualized behavior that produces a harmonious family dinner, or even a business lunch.

The irony of irony here is that today’s modern liberated woman, the kind that is flocking to Kamala as though she were their last chance at vindication, will insist that she does not and will not and cannot cook. 

All of those incipient feminists, who reject the role of housewife, are rushing out to embrace a woman who knows how to cook and who slept her way to the top. One thing is clear, Kamala did not earn it. 

Given her ability to seduce powerful men, it makes good sense that she is using the same charms, and the same schoolgirl giggle, to seduce the nation.

Nothing is quite so charming as a woman of mystery. No one really knows what she thinks about policy issues. No one can examine her ability to analyze policy issues. Does she have a command of the material as needed to do the job? Presumably, she does not. If she did, she would happily show it off. The fact that she refuses to answer questions or to offer up any but the most empty headed platitudes suggests that she is not up to the job.

Even Oprah was shocked to hear the drivel Kamala was throwing out.

Kamala owes her position to her ability to be a high class courtesan. She promises to slake another kind of hunger. She appeals to another kind of appetite.

She is charming and seductive, in her way. She is probably not as seductive as she was when she was half her current age, but the basis for her candidacy involves seduction. It involves a mysterious woman who refuses to give it up until she is given the job. She tantalizes, she suggests, she promises… but she does not engage in the kinds of interviews that would show us whether she is up to the job. 

She whets your appetite and promises more. 

Considering the connection between the two kinds of appetite, alimentary and sexual, we have to conclude that Lakshmi has lit on something basic about Kamala Harris. It does not constitute a qualification for the highest office in the land, but it does give us an idea about the game that Kamala is playing with the American mind. 

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