On the front page of the Seattle Times ran an astonishingly
partisan account of the first Democratic debate of this presidential campaign by
the New York Times, that had no sense
of journalistic integrity or even pretended to offer an objective account of
the proceedings. From first to last it was an entirely uncritical Hillary
Clinton grovel-fest, who allegedly shredded Bernie Sanders on every issue. The
other hopefuls on stage were virtually ignored. The Clinton News Network “moderator”
repeatedly attacked Sanders, while lobbing Clinton softballs that brought
cheers from her partisans present. Oh yes, that inch-thick face powder made her
look “presidential” while Sanders just looked like an old white man with many
years in the political and social trenches, not like the virile (yet unthreatening) young black man back in 2008.
Naturally, CNN’s own choice of
the “winner” of the debate was foreordained, given its gender politics. No
doubt the Seattle Times chose this
blatantly one-sided version for the same reason. In a Thursday follow-up
story on Joe Biden’s potential run, Clinton’s performance was deemed
“commanding” by the NYT—which is like
saying Ronald Reagan, already on the fringes of dementia, “passed” his
re-electability test during the first 1984 presidential debate by putting
together a coherent sentence. As for Clinton, Ringo Starr once said of Paul
McCartney that he was “pleasantly insincere”; Hillary is just insincere,
feeding off her husband’s continued personal touch with common people that she
lacks in droves. It is the media elites who keep insisting to us that she is
something more than what she is: Completely conceited and self-obsessed.
Still, I am a life-long Democrat
and intend to vote for whoever is eventually nominated, even a Democrat I think
is phony but is better than the Republican alternative; Republicans just do
bad, and at worst, a Democrat will not make a bad situation worse (just compare
how Herbert Hoover and FDR handled the Great Depression). If Clinton is
eventually nominated, I will likely devote my opinions to her opponent rather
than speak well of her with any “enthusiasm.” But to insure that outcome, the pro-Clinton camp is being
forced to deceive, because for those who actually watched the debate, the
reality was quite different than what some are desperate for us to believe.
For those who are not fanatical partisans
of Clinton, sarcasm isn’t “presidential” or “commanding,” it is off-putting and
a poor substitute for reasoned arguments, and trying to bully the moderator
merely brings to mind questions of her true personality and character, on
display most egregiously in her infamously racist and bizarre comments made
under pressure when she found her chances slipping away in 2008. And the pompous
clichés are tiresome as they are tedious and retread no matter how “forceful”
they are enunciated, merely offering voters a sense of déjà vu.
On the other hand, what Clinton
gutlessly derided as “illogical” in today’s political program is an entirely different
paradigm that demands a proactive approach to meeting the needs of ordinary people
before corporations, Wall Street, the social and political “elites,” and boldly
confronting right-wing divisiveness and media hypocrisy. One must applaud
Sanders’ courage to offer an alternative world view that seeks to halt this
country’s slide into feudalism. In fact, almost every other news outlet that
wasn’t a slobbering Hillary sycophant declared Sanders the easy winner of the
debate, and clearly that is the reason why the Clinton media outlets are in
desperation mode hoping to convince those who did not watch the debate that
Clinton had actually “won.”
The truth of the matter is that
reports indicate that Sanders ignited interest in his candidacy by his performance.
Internet watchers reported that Google searches for Sanders policy positions
(long a staple on Thom Hartmann’s progressive radio program) were off the
charts during the debate, as was largely positive twitter activity. Focus
groups sponsored by various media outlets, including CNN and Fox News, reported
that a large majority believed that Sanders had won the debate; obviously CNN’s
arrogant gender-obsessed “analysts” are out-of-touch with the views of ordinary
voters.
While it is true that some of these
voters questioned whether Sanders was “electable”—something feminists like
Bonnie Erbe were concerned enough about in 2008 to call for Barack Obama to
step aside after winning the delegate count because “white people won’t vote
for you”—simply saying that Clinton acted “presidential,” and thus “electable,”
is little more than a Potemkin façade, with little substance behind it. Can
anyone name a single notable accomplishment of Clinton in her four years as
Secretary of State, other than logging in a record number of frequent flyer
miles on the taxpayer dime? To say that Sanders has a snowball’s chance in hell
of getting elected is stretching the improbabilities; his promise of people
before the rich and powerful may be something that a majority of voters find
refreshing enough to take a stab at, even if Clinton derides the notion as
“childish.”
On the social media website
Fusion, it was reported that its focus group also supported Sanders,
particularly younger voters. One young Democrat said that Sanders was “on fire
the whole night.” What the hell was the New
York Times, CNN and the Huffington Post smoking during the debate? “Strong,
straightforward, powerful” were used to describe Sanders by Florida Democrats.
For someone like Clinton, a lack of straightforwardness easily cancels out a
supposedly “presidential” and “commanding” delivery, because it only makes her
phoniness and hypocrisy more irritating.
Now, the NYT obviously backed Clinton because she is a former senator of the
state and domiciles there, thus a bit of “homerism” is expected. But if the Seattle Times really wanted to print a
more balanced story on the debate, that wasn’t from first to last a pro-Clinton
opinion piece, it could have chosen reports from the Washington Post and the Chicago
Tribune, both respectable newspaper in their own right. But the Seattle
paper has a gender politics obsession, and since both the Post and the Tribune
posited Sanders as the winner of the debate (the latter also lauded Sanders’
refusal to compromise on his beliefs for votes, like Clinton does), their view was politically "incorrect."
While the NYT version of events mentioned wild applause by Clinton partisans
during the debate, it failed to mention that Sanders received similar applause
more often with declarations that “Congress doesn’t regulate Wall Street, Wall
Street regulates Congress,” Of Clinton’s mocking of Sanders’ vision of economic
fairness, documentarian Michael Moore said “Well, any of you with a good
sniffer knows what I know from what we all just heard: The banks are going to
love President H. Clinton.” Moore also suggested that Sanders entry into the
race brought the opportunity for real, substantive debate on the issues,
something that could only hurt Clinton, if the national media has the gonads to
expose it.
Meanwhile, Atlantic Monthly Online claimed that Clinton looked the “polished,
experienced debater, and she profited from standing on stage with the four men
in the field. Chafee and Webb seemed nervous and uncomfortable, while Sanders
was—as always—Sanders: fervent, grumpy, unfiltered, and righteously angry. The
factors that have made him an idol to many Democratic voters and eroded
Clinton’s polling numbers also make her look more presidential when they’re
standing next to each other.” The Monthly
also talked about Clinton’s alleged “experience,” beginning with her own
(unmentioned) failure to convince Congress to pass health care reform—and
because of the harm she caused she was essentially political and policy persona
non grata for the rest of her husband’s term in office; it is interesting to
note that Bill Clinton lost his first re-election bid for governor of Arkansas
in part because of his wife’s unpopularity with voters, and he was eventually
re-elected when Hillary was forced to keep a low profile.
The magazine also ignored the
fact that Sanders has been pursuing progressive ideas and policies since the
1960s. Clinton has nothing to show save taking up space; at least Obama had the
courage and vision to pursue and have passed the most important social program
since Social Security, and willingly paid the political price for it. All
Clinton is offering is, according to the Monthly,
is “a reminder that she’d be the first woman president.” No doubt that is
enough for some people.
Sanders does have his weaknesses,
principally upholding at least the spirit of the populist shibboleth that
immigrants from Mexico are “stealing” jobs from “real” Americans and depressing
wages, ignoring the centuries old reality of the “underground” economy between
the U.S. and Mexico, whereas the latter provides transient labor that “real”
Americans either will not do or no longer have that “migratory” instinct to
travel to where the work is. Sanders has a real chance of alienating the
three-quarters of Hispanics in this country who are “real Americans” and who
find Clinton’s opportunistic rhetoric more appealing despite the record of
broken promises by the Obama administration. Old world New Englanders like
Sanders have a serious blind spot in failing to acknowledge that this is a
country of immigrants; perhaps his own ancestors were among the first to arrive
unwelcome and stole the land they reside on from Native Americans, after all.
Sanders also has a problem with
articulating coherent foreign policy positions, clearly something he has spent
less time thinking about than domestic issues; his belief that Putin is less a
threat to U.S. interests than what most people think is on the naïve side. On
the other hand, despite Clinton having four years of “experience” as Secretary
of State, it hasn’t seemed to make her any more competent in formulating a
coherent strategy to deal with current issues now as then, although to be fair
to say that rolling stone began during the Bush administration, including that
unholy trinity of lies (Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld) that Sanders pointed out
were Clinton’s sources of “facts” for voting for the Iraq War.
Sanders does shine most brightly
on his genuine concern for the problems of ordinary people. There is no doubt
he is sincere in his belief that advancing economic inequality and the solutions for it (a $15 minimum wage,
tuition-free higher education
opportunities for all, and a New Deal type of jobs program). He is obviously
well within the idealistic notions of younger voters and the concerns of labor.
Sanders was also on fertile ground attacking the media’s lack of interest in
economic inequality in this country, preferring to talk about his opinion on
Clinton’s hairdo.
Despite what Clintonphiles in the
media believe, Clinton utterly failed to stop Standers and his vision from
harming her own position, which during this debate many viewers heard Sanders
for the first time, thanks to major media outlets like CNN trying their best to
silence Sanders. Will Sanders be the next person to block the “entitlement” of
the media favorite, its “chosen one” whose only real “qualification” is the
support of similarly “entitled” people? We shall see.
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