The New York Times turns on Kamala! As the liberal newspaper runs a string of brutal op-eds slamming Harris as ‘weak’, ‘a phony’ and ‘ignorant’, is her ‘Brat summer’ finally over?

There are few more reliable cheerleaders than Kamala Harris’ friends in the liberal media.

Since President Joe Biden withdrew from the 2024 race last month, their printing presses and TV networks have been working hard to build on Harris’s past as the most unpopular Vice President in American history.

Reading and hearing their praise, you believe that Harris is already a sure thing for the presidency — and not just a last-minute replacement as the Democratic nominee.

Until Harris gave a lackluster speech at the Democratic National Convention last Thursday night, which seemed to put a stop to the flood of feel-good fangirls.

The reliably left-leaning New York Times was among the first to suddenly change course on Friday, criticizing what many saw as Harris’ fatal lack of clear policy, with a brazen headline that read: “Joy Is Not a Strategy.”

In a sour commentary, Patrick Healy, deputy editor of the NYT’s opinion page, said he “cringed” when former President Bill Clinton took the stage at the party convention on Tuesday and claimed Harris would be “the president of joy.”

How will that help the millions of Americans whose livelihoods are now at stake, Healey asked? And why hasn’t Harris given a single interview or serious press conference since Biden left office last month?

“Ultimately, she needs more voters in the swing states who trust that she can manage the economy better than her opponent… Harris cannot rely on ‘joy,’” he concluded witheringly.

But the Times would report even worse.

On Monday, the newspaper published a guest article titled “Trump Can Win on Character,” written by conservative commentator Rich Lowry.

Lowry pulled no punches, writing that Harris is “weak and a fraud and doesn’t really care about the country or the middle class.”

Lowry criticized Harris’ performance as vice president, particularly her failure to “secure the border or tackle inflation.”

“She doesn’t care whether her tax policies will destroy jobs. She’s been part of an administration that has watched real wages stagnate while minimizing the problem because she puts the party line ahead of the economic reality for working Americans,” he added.

Of course, such criticisms are not uncommon in conservative circles, but such harsh words in the NYT will undoubtedly be seen as a warning shot by Harris’ team.

Another guest essay in the Times, written by veteran financial journalist Roger Lowenstein and published Tuesday, criticized Harris’s economic policies.

In the article – which, to be fair, also criticized Trump’s position on tariffs as “nonsense” – Lowenstein criticized Harris as “critical and vague” in her plan to implement communist “price controls” in supermarkets.

“Forget that her proposal addresses a problem that no longer exists… Even more disheartening was her apparent ignorance of the fact that price controls have, almost without exception, led to shortages, supply chain disruptions, and ultimately higher prices,” he wrote.

And it’s not just the Times. In fact, a sense of unease with Harris now seems to be creeping into the commentariat, with the authoritative Wall Street Journal and the left-leaning The Hill adding to the unrest.

“Are you willing to pay $5 trillion for Kamala Vibes?” senior commentator James Freeman asked the WSJ on Friday.

Freeman argued that Harris has damaged the economy during her time as vice president, not least by supporting Biden’s multi-billion dollar government spending boost during the COVID crisis.

“She deserves more than her share of the blame for delivering the crucial tie-breaking votes in the Senate on inflation-fueling spending plans,” he wrote. “And now she promises to impose devastating new tax increases on our sluggish economy.”

Meanwhile, on Friday’s episode of the popular daily political podcast “Potomac Watch,” Bill McGurn, former speechwriter for George W. Bush, described Harris’ DNC speech as “tired.”

Journalist Kim Strassel, meanwhile, criticized Harris’ lack of policy.

“I have no doubt that the Kamala campaign would love it if you said, ‘I have no idea what any of that means,'” she joked. “That’s their campaign strategy, to make sure that no one has any idea what she’s actually going to do.”

Donald Trump has long complained about the bias of the American media, blaming the media for Harris’ long “honeymoon” since Biden’s dramatic exit from the presidential race.

But it’s not just Republicans who are concerned about the reporting.

Take this painful comment from the website The Hill, a favorite among the political elite in Washington DC, which in the hours immediately following Harris’ speech on Thursday gave conservative writer Derek Hunter the space to portray Harris as “an airhead who basks in positive media coverage and doesn’t care about accountability.”

Hunter pointed out that Harris was not chosen by anyone for her new position.

“She is the first nominee from either party who did not have to secure a single delegate or vote in the primary,” he wrote. “She is ‘historic’ in the sense that it is highly unlikely she could have secured the nomination if there had been any competition for the job.”

Hunter’s attack isn’t the first time The Hill has criticized Harris.

Opinion writer Merrill Matthews wrote earlier this month that “we don’t really know what ‘Kamalanomics’ is,” adding that “the vice president is more focused on offering clichés with attitude.”

“So far, her campaign website has no policy proposals, so that doesn’t help. But you can buy a Harris-Walz hat that the media is raving about,” he said.

Gerard Baker, former editor-in-chief of the WSJ, came to a similar conclusion.

Baker wrote in The Times of London on the eve of the DNC that Harris “wanted to win an election on a platform so light and superficial that it could have been spread on clouds of hype.”

‘She was of course helped in this by a client media company that, instead of the traditional task of critically assessing a candidate and testing her skills and ideas, has largely joined in the fun.’

But now that the “client media” is starting to ask questions, it appears Harris’ honeymoon is over — and there are still 69 days until the election.