"America must seize on the moment and I truly believe — as I actually told the VP last night when I called him — that I think this is a moment to put a woman of color on that ticket."

Said Amy Klobuchar, who says she called Biden on Wednesday to tell him she was withdrawing from competition for the VP slot, NBC News reports.

I think we all already knew her chance was blown:

In the immediate aftermath of Floyd’s killing, Klobuchar’s time as chief prosecutor for Hennepin County came back under scrutiny, specifically the lack of prosecutions she pursued in cases of police brutality....

Asked if those questions about her past record on police brutality would have made it harder for her in the role of vice presidential nominee, Klobuchar said Thursday: "I think I could've functioned fine and there's a lot of untruths out there about my record and now is not the time to debate those."

So what I hear in her effort at a high-minded statement is an undercutting of the other women who are in the running. First, Elizabeth Warren — who is not a woman of color except in her memory of younger days when family lore and a desire to identify were enough. Why step on her chances, Amy? Second, all the various black women who are in the running. Amy is ensuring that when one of them is picked, everyone will believe they were picked because of their race.

"Shortly before Elizabeth Warren joined their virtual happy hour on a recent Friday afternoon, the five African American women co-hosting the #TheSipHour mused about calling her by her first name."

"The Massachusetts senator had her own moniker in mind. 'I was going to say I’m here today as an ally, but can we really just say co-conspirator?' laughed Warren, one of the few white women to appear at the events organized by Higher Heights For America, which promotes the organizing and voting power of black women. 'Nothing’s going to change unless it is black women’s voices that are uplifted.' Such overtures could help Warren’s bid to become Joe Biden’s running mate. The presumptive Democratic nominee is under mounting pressure to pick a black woman in the wake of recent outrage over racial injustice and police brutality. But some black leaders say Warren’s progressive politics, economic populism and specific policy proposals addressing everything from maternal mortality to the coronavirus could put her in a strong position. 'I think she’s totally still viable,' said Nelini Stamp, director of strategy and partnerships for the Working Families Party, a progressive labor activist group that endorsed Warren in the primary. 'Warren is one of the folks whose been talking about big structural change. And when we’re thinking about re-imagining public safety, that is something that’s going to require some actual structural change.'"

AP reports.

"But there’s more to the story of Harris’s endorsement. Yes, she genuinely likes Biden."

"The endorsement was real. 'I really do believe in Joe,' Harris told me. But coming days after the California primary, the timing of Harris’s announcement struck me as curious. ... I asked her about it. 'I had two women colleagues in the race, and I did not feel right putting my thumb on the scale [that] in any way would harm their candidacy,' Harris said, referring to Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). Both ended their campaigns last week. 'So, when Elizabeth announced that she was getting out of the race, I let Joe know that I would endorse him.... Elizabeth and I have a very special relationship'...."

Writes Jonathan Capeheart in the Washington Post.

IN THE COMMENTS: rehajm said: "Does she know Tulsi Gabbard is still in the race? Not a friend?"

To be fair, we are all forgetting about Tulsi. And Tulsi isn't a Senator. I think Kamala meant women of my rank when she said "I had two women colleagues in the race." Senators are not "colleagues" of the folk in the lower house. The OED gives the etymology:

< French collègue, < Latin collēga , one chosen along with another, a partner in office, etc.; < col- together + legĕre to choose, etc.

The OED points me to "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon, and I wanted to give you the full passage, because it's about separation of powers in government:

Ostentation was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian. The second was division. He divided the empire, the provinces, and every branch of the civil as well as military administration. He multiplied the wheels of the machine of government, and rendered its operations less rapid, but more secure. Whatever advantages and whatever defects might attend these innovations, they must be ascribed in a very great degree to the first inventor; but as the new frame of policy was gradually improved and completed by succeeding princes, it will be more satisfactory to delay the consideration of it till the season of its full maturity and perfection. Reserving, therefore, for the reign of Constantine a more exact picture of the new empire, we shall content ourselves with describing the principal and decisive outline, as it was traced by the hand of Diocletian. He had associated three colleagues in the exercise of the supreme power; and as he was convinced that the abilities of a single man were inadequate to the public defence, he considered the joint administration of four princes not as a temporary expedient, but as a fundamental law of the constitution. It was his intention, that the two elder princes should be distinguished by the use of the diadem, and the title of Augusti; that, as affection or esteem might direct their choice, they should regularly call to their assistance two subordinate colleagues; and that the Cæsars, rising in their turn to the first rank, should supply an uninterrupted succession of emperors. The empire was divided into four parts. The East and Italy were the most honorable, the Danube and the Rhine the most laborious stations. The former claimed the presence of the Augusti, the latter were intrusted to the administration of the Cæsars. The strength of the legions was in the hands of the four partners of sovereignty, and the despair of successively vanquishing four formidable rivals might intimidate the ambition of an aspiring general. In their civil government, the emperors were supposed to exercise the undivided power of the monarch, and their edicts, inscribed with their joint names, were received in all the provinces, as promulgated by their mutual councils and authority. Notwithstanding these precautions, the political union of the Roman world was gradually dissolved, and a principle of division was introduced, which, in the course of a few years, occasioned the perpetual separation of the Eastern and Western Empires.