A touching sob story has been making the rounds concerning Kamala Harris this week.

It seems that little Kamala was once told by her teachers that she was very special, and that someday, she would be president. But now, it has dawned on her that this is not to be, and her heart is breaking: "But we all have a similar story right? Of some teacher along the way that convinced us we were special? We weren't particularly special. But they told us we were, and we believed them! We were put on this path to being here together, talking about who's going to be the next president of the United States..."

Who takes this kind of thing seriously? Kamala Harris is 54 years old. She is a mature woman. She has long learned the truths about life and politics (much about both taught her by that political sensei, Willie Brown). We're supposed to believe that all that has sustained her over the years are the illusions generated in childhood by offhand praise from teachers?

I have some expertise in this, since I too was often assured while in school that my future would involve a presidential encounter. What the nuns used to tell me was, "Someday I'll open the paper and see that Jeff Dunn has shot the president."

Well, I never became a twitching Oswald-like maniac, and Harris will never be president, which is all to the best in both cases. But the difference is that I hadn't thought about those remarks for decades until this story dredged them up from deep in memory, whereas Harris — at least we're supposed to believe — has never forgotten them, and in fact has been obsessed by them her entire adult life, to the point where she made a serious attempt to make them come to pass. This, in the end, is simply one more reason why Kamala Harris should not hold public office.