TršŸ©ll Smear #10: ā€œBernie is a sleazy, dishonest campaigner and he is abusive to his staff and the mediaā€

EuroYankee
Aug 22, 2017 Ā· 3 min read

This is just another collection of ad hominem attacks that have nothing to do with policy, and the attacks often rely on very anecdotal and anonymous information.

Yes, the cops were called in to intimidate and subdue Sanders supporters.
  • Bernie lied to his supporters in Nevada, causing a riot to break out

This is laughable. It has been well-documented that the Sanders delegates were misled and mistreated by the NV Democratic Committee, and that a fraud was perpetrated at the convention. The plain fact is that Sanders had 2,124 delegate slots to the State Convention and Hillary Clinton had 1,722 delegate slots to the State Convention. And yet Clinton ended up with 33 more delegates actually being seated. The Bernie side maintained that 64 Sanders delegates were improperly denied seating, which tipped the balance to Clinton. This caused a nonexistent riot that was reported by one biased reporter to discredit Sanders and the sanders supporters.

The charge that Sanders himself was responsible for the ā€œfracasā€ is one based on an allegation that it was a group of Sanders supporters who filed a so-called ā€œminority reportā€ claiming that the 64 Sanders delegates were denied seating illegitimately.

The fact that it was a Bernie supporter who filed the report somehow blows back to Bernie, and so, the attack goes, he should be responsible.

Except, the minority report in question was actually filed by Leslie Sexton, who is a member of the Nevada State Democratic Central Committee and was a Co-Chair of the Credentials Committee responsible for seating the delegates.

Bernie has nothing to apologise for in Nevada.

  • Bernie’s campaign acted fraudulently

This attack is a wide-ranging one, and goes back to all manner of accusations about Sanders campaigns having misrepresented endorsements they did not have, and so on. This is very small beer. To condemn someone for reprinting an article praising the candidate, calling it an ā€œendorsementā€ when the publication had not officially endorsed Sanders — well, that is a pretty small thing to hang your hat on.

And in the case of the 2016 race, there is only ONE lawsuit alleging fraud committed in a campaign, and it’s against the DNC.

There were also allegations of FEC violations because some people may have contributed one too many $27 instalments, or — like me — they contributed from overseas. This is also small potatoes, compared to the massive fraud and collusion that was committed by the DNC and the Clinton campaign systemically and nationally and over the course of a full year.

I would rebut all of these charges with the simple fact that the ethics complaints (3 of them) filed against the Sanders campaign were all field by David Brock, a well-known Clinton partisan and someone who was paid handsomely by the Clintons for running one of Hillary’s PACs (Correct the Record) and now Shareblue, which runs what the Seattle Times calls a ā€œTwitter army to voice outrage on Clinton’s behalfā€. Indeed, Vanity Fair and even Brock himself describe Shareblue as ā€œThe Breitbart of the Leftā€.

So when it comes to these types of attacks, one really should ā€œconsider the source.ā€ And if anyone disses you for referencing an article in Breitbart.com, point them to that Vanity Fair piece.

  • Bernie is not just a ā€œgrumpy grandpaā€ — he is harsh and abusive

This is one more baseless ad hominem attack, and one that dovetails with the ā€œholier-than-thouā€ theme — and it is one that is really based on some pretty thin evidence, such as the following:

ā€œHe yelled in meetings all the time,ā€ says one of Sanders’ former Senate staffers. ā€œHe’d yell, ā€˜I don’t want to hear excuses! I want to get it done!ā€™ā€

Oh, that poor, poor snowflake. I don’t think anyone in their right mind would consider such an ā€œoutburstā€ to be inappropriate. And if that poor delicate flower of a staffer cannot realise that ā€politics ain’t beanbag,ā€ then s/he needs to find another profession.

Sanders is also accused of being rough with the media, hanging up on reporters or ending interviews when they refuse to discuss the things he wants to talk about. As you might guess, Bernie always wants to talk about the issues, and he accuses the media of talking about ā€œthe horse race.ā€ I say, good luck making that argument — we know how everyone LOVES the media.

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EuroYankee

Written by

The EuroYankee is a US Ex-Pat with dual US-EU citizenship, who travels Europe extensively, commenting on trends, attitudes, politics and more.

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