Harris keeps on flopping in the spotlight

Vice President Kamala Harris is once again taking heat for her job performance — this time for laughing on the international stage while answering a reporter's question about whether the United States would be setting a specific allocation for Ukrainian refugees.

Harris, the former U.S. senator from California and state attorney general, started laughing at what was apparently an inside joke between her and Polish President Andrzej Duda, with whom she was on stage.

Harris has been panned by national and international media ever since because the laugh came at a very inappropriate

— time in the middle of a refugee crisis and war.

“It would be a tragedy if this woman won the presidency,” tweeted Iuliia Mendel, a former spokeswoman for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in response.

Harris has been repeatedly criticized for shrinking in big moments, which her defenders have written off as the product of racism, sexism and right-wing talking points. Yet with each gaffe it's harder and harder to explain away her lack of political acumen and it's clear that Americans aren't buying the hollow, partisan excuses.

According to the Los Angeles Times, which has been tracking public polling of Harris, she has a lower favorability rating than her four predecessors, a generally unpopular bunch. Just last month, UC Berkeley's Institute of Governmental Studies found that only 38% of California voters favorably viewed Harris' performance as vice president, compared to 46% who disapproved of her performance.

Defenders have complained that Harris has received a “trash” portfolio from the White House — a portfolio that has included immigration, abortion and voting procedures.

But these are all central planks in the Democratic Party's platform, while foreign relations is the primary task of a president.

Others have claimed it must be because Harris is known enough, and this is after a decades-long career in politics in the largest state in the nation, a presidential bid and now, time as vice president.

This all begs the question: If Harris can handle neither domestic issues nor foreign relations, why does anyone still think she could be a viable presidential candidate?

Besides constantly reinventing herself and shaking up her staff, Harris has been plagued by persistent accusations of incompetence, which goes all the way back to her time as San Francisco district attorney.

While tasked by the White House to take the lead on America's southern border crisis, she was criticized for not visiting the border for a first-hand look. But she made matters so much worse by dismissing the criticism in an interview by saying: “And I haven't been to Europe.

And I mean, I don't ... understand the point that you're making.”

Harris has proven time and again to be underwhelming as vice president, a position with almost no real responsibility.

But what would make Harris particularly unfit for the presidency — if that unfortunate day should ever come — is her inability to take responsibility for her mistakes and then learn from them.