Will Dana get Bashed tonight?

I’ve been a professional journalist for more than 60 years, I’ve covered all kinds of stories and interviewed all kinds of people. There is no subject I am afraid to tackle, but if I were Dana Bash, I’d be feeling a butterfly belly, and a puckered sphincter about tonight’s interview.

It is almost a no-win situation.

If she doesn’t drill through Kamala Harris’ well-rehearsed and vanilla Soft Serve answers, she will be skewered by the Right as a progressive patsy.

If she slashes through Harris’ explanations, she will be bullwhipped by the Left as a tincup traitor.

This will be her Goldilocks moment — not too pleasant, not too nasty, just right.

Over the years. I have seen Bash do many interviews, and almost always they are pointed and fair. Only on occasion does the mask slip, showing her Left leanings. Not surprising, most of her colleagues are the same. 

One big tell was her observation after the September 2020 first debate between Joe Biden and Donald J. Trump, who constantly interrupted and talked over Biden.

In her post-debate analysis, Bash called it a “shit show” and there was no question who she was talking about.

Not to me, anyway — the disrupter Trump.

Honest to God, when she said “shit show,” I blurted out, “Holy shit.” But I was sitting at home, not on national television.

It was one of the most inappropriate outbursts I ever heard from a professional journalist.  I was not shocked by the actual words, but who said it, and where.

I am not the only one who remembers that.

Nor am I the only person wondering why CNN chose Bash, as opposed to yoking her with Jake Tapper, with whom she often works.

Was it some kind of “sisterhood” thing CNN was aiming for, believing that a really tough grilling would “look” better coming from a woman than a man?

I don’t know.

I do know that Kamala has about two dozen hard Left positions, and she has yet to explain them publicly. 

Through flacks we have heard she no longer would ban fracking, nor implement the Green New Deal, nor endorse Medicare for all, nor demand that 100% of new car sales be EV by 2035. She also had favored getting rid of ICE, defunding police, helping raise bail for rioters, and expanding the U.S. Supreme Court.

The issue is not whether or not you like each of these ideas. Kamala has to explain where she is now, and if she changed, why? She must be credible, and authentic.

Bash can’t raise all those issues, but she must raise some — including the border, which most Americans see as a Biden failure. Ditto inflation.

And the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. Was Kamala the last person in the room when that decision was made?

Harris’ challenge will be to share the applause for Biden’s successes, while divorcing herself from the blame for his failures.

That will be hard to do, and Bash must be there to fact-check on the fly.

I don’t envy her.