Kamala Harris made a huge blunder on The View last week when she couldn’t or wouldn’t distance herself, proposed-policy-wise, from the Biden administration. Tens of millions of Average Joes and Janes are apparently convinced that Biden is a bad guy, and Kamala couldn’t come up with anything other than “uhhm, Joe did fine and so will I”?

All U.S. vice-presidents are obliged to show allegiance and respect to the Oval Office occupant, but she had to know that “in what way will you act differently than Biden as president?” would be asked here and there.

Dick Cheney excluded, the vice-presidency is largely a ceremonial position…no independent agency, a warm pitcher of spit, etc. But as Hubert Humphrey learned during the ’68 campaign against Richard Nixon, separating one’s self from the boss is a good thing — it indicates character, strength, resolve.

Basic political protocol says that vice-presidents need to express loyalty and show deference to the president. But they also have to hit the reset button when they succeed. Very quickly after 11.22.63, Lyndon Johnson, who was miserable while serving as JFK’s vp, became his own man despite having committed himself to fulfilling Kennedy‘s administrative agenda. Harry Truman embarked upon his own program within a year (or less) of FDR’s death.

If I’d been in Harris’s shoes, I would have told my View questioner, “I don’t intend my presidency to be a rubber-stamp presidency. I am my own person. I am very strong on fair-minded domestic policies and women’s rights, of course. Did Joe Biden and I err a couple of times? Were we a tad over-liberal about Mexican border immigration? Could the Afghanistan withdrawal have been handled better? Were we imperfect? You can argue that and we could kick it around, but I’ve learned some things over the past three and two-thirds years. Wiser for these difficult episodes.”