Opinion

ROOKE: Kamala’s Campaign Crossed The Line, And Now She’s Paying The Price

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Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
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Some issues are more important than politics: family, faith and honor. This is a lesson that Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign staff have apparently never learned. The Harris campaign used the deaths of service members as a political attack, and it backfired.

The incompetence of the Biden-Harris Administration is seen in everyday life for Americans, but especially for the families of the 13 service members who died on Aug. 26, 2021, during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. Since that day, these Gold Star families watched as President Joe Biden stared at his watch while their sons’ and daughters’ bodies were delivered back to America. They felt the pain of loneliness when the president stole their time to honor their children by talking about his own son’s death. Harris has never reached out to these families to thank them for their sacrifice, family members have said publicly.

Despite the disrespect, these families have stayed silent and neutral. There have been a couple of comments to the press about the lack of support from the Biden-Harris administration, and one of the fathers did shout out their names during Biden’s State of the Union Address. Still, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that these families weren’t weighing into the election. That was until the Harris campaign and her lackeys in regime media decided to turn the 3rd anniversary of their sacrifice into a political hit job against the only person willing to take their calls: former President Donald Trump.

Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard both claimed Sunday that Biden and Harris were invited by the Gold Star families to a wreath laying ceremony to honor their fallen loved ones. A Harris aide and White House staffer denied these claims to NBC News.

The families invited former President Trump. He showed up, took pictures with the families and even video chatted with families who couldn’t make the ceremony at their child’s gravesite.

They have never asked for much, just the honor and respect owed to their children for dying for this country. For whatever reason, the Biden-Harris Administration couldn’t handle this simple act of love. Then, when Trump’s appearance at Arlington National Cemetery exposed their heartless treatment of these families, the Harris campaign and the media tried to use their grief to score political points. (RELATED: How Liberal Pollsters Are Recreating The 2016 Wave Of Silent Trump Voters)

Harris used her X account to attack Trump over his visit. She claimed his appearance was politically motivated and “disrespected the sacred ground.”

“If there is one thing on which we as Americans can all agree, it is that our veterans, military families, and service members should be honored, never disparaged, and treated with nothing less than our highest respect and gratitude,” Harris said. This coming from the woman who has never once reached out to the families of the Abbey Gate 13 in order to show her “respect and gratitude” for their deaths, according to multiple family members’ statements.

The move was a significant miscalculation. Her decision to allow this statement triggered eight of the thirteen families to release video responses to Harris. In these videos, which have racked up millions of views, the families said Harris lacked empathy, blamed their deaths on the Biden-Harris Administration and denounced her campaign. In addition to the videos, some of the Gold Star families of the Abbey Gate 13 released a joint statement calling Harris’s post a “disgraceful politicization of this anniversary,” according to screenshots posted on Trump’s X account. (ROOKE: The Moment The RFK Campaign Realized Trump Was Right About Everything)

“We, the families of the brave service members who were tragically killed in the Abbey Gate bombing, are appalled by Vice President Kamala Harris’ recent attempts to politicize President Trump’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery,” the families said, the screenshots show.

“Vice President Harris bears responsibility for the deaths of our sons and daughters. Her administration’s catastrophic mishandling of the Afghanistan withdrawal directly led to the murder of 13 service members, including our children. Despite our multiple requests for a meeting to discuss the loss of our loved ones, Vice President Harris has repeatedly ignored us, showing a complete lack of empathy and accountability. This refusal to face the consequences of her administration’s decisions is a deep betrayal to us as Gold Star families,” their statement continued, the screenshots read.

“Vice President Harris has proven herself unfit to serve as Commander-in-Chief. Her actions, both in the failure of the Afghanistan withdrawal and in her disgraceful politicization of this anniversary, have shown that she lacks the judgment, compassion, and leadership required for the position. We will continue to hold her accountable for the role she played in the deaths of our children, and we will not stand by as she disrespects their memory. America deserves better. Our children deserved better,” the families added, according to the screenshots.

This is a damning teardown of the Biden-Harris administration. Harris could have avoided this by showing even a little compassion to the grieving families by simply allowing Trump to honor their dead at Arlington National Cemetery without trying to turn it into a political issue. (ROOKE: RNC’s Election Integrity Battle Is Raging On In Must-Win Swing States)

Her inability to do that for these families gave life to a political problem that would have been nothing more than a blimp on the election radar. Now, a story about her lack of respect and compassion for dead soldiers and their families will last a week or more. She prolonged a negative news cycle and spat in the face of military families with less than 70 days until November. In any other decade, this would have lost her the election.

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