For all of the journalists who suddenly want to channel the same aspirational biracial narrative that marked Barack Obama’s march to the White House, we must note that these autobiographies can be heavily shaped and edited, which is why the word “reintroduction” should land like a brick. Obama’s “autobiography” was riddled with fictional elements, even composite girlfriends.

On the front page of The New York Times on August 26 is a story explaining that the Harris campaign has an allergy to noting their candidate was born in the radical tumult of Berkeley in the 1960s. Instead, a convention video listed her childhood home as located in “East Bay.” It can’t be “The People’s Republic of Berkeley” in anyone’s reintroduction to moderate voters. ...

The “reintroduction” shapers also left out Kamala’s teenage years in Canada. From 1976 to 1982 (from roughly 12 to 18), she lived in Montreal, where her mother worked at McGill University. The Times noted Montreal “fared even worse than Berkeley” at the convention. “The city’s name was completely excised from Ms. Harris’s re-telling of her childhood.”