No game-changing debate for Bernie. A lot of shouting, a lot of arm waving, but no coup de grâce.
But it wasn’t because he didn’t have a chance to knock her out. The day before the debate, one of his supporters, no doubt taking a cue from the candidate himself, suggested Hillary was a corporate whore. As we all know, Bernie himself has suggested, in more gentlemanly ways, the same thing. She has sold herself to the highest bidder, don’t ya know. Last night, he got his chance to give us some examples:
DANA BASH: Senator Sanders, you have consistently criticized Secretary Clinton for accepting money from Wall Street. Can you name one decision that she made as senator that shows that he favored banks because of the money she received?
SANDERS: Sure. Sure. The obvious decision is when the greed and recklessness and illegal behavior of Wall Street brought this country into the worst economic downturn since the Great Recession — the Great Depression of the ’30s, when millions of people lost their jobs, and their homes, and their life savings, the obvious response to that is that you’ve got a bunch of fraudulent operators and that they have got to be broken up. That was my view way back, and I introduced legislation to do that. Now, Secretary Clinton was busy giving speeches to Goldman Sachs for $225,000 a speech. So the problem response — the proper response in my view is we should break them up. And that’s what my legislation does.
CLINTON: Well, you can tell, Dana, he cannot come up with any example, because there is no example.
You would think that a man who has spent so much time tossing around accusations of corruption, suggestions of her whoring around, would have at least one example on the tip of his tongue that proved Mrs. Clinton, who has been in politics for a helluva long time, has been turning tricks for corporate cash. But nope. He couldn’t. Just 123 words of pure bullshit.
The Erstwhile Conservative: A Blog of Repentance 
King Beauregard
/ April 15, 2016I wonder what history’s verdict on Sanders will be. I think it’s going to end up that, for all his passion and desire to see our society change, he was never willing to engage and make it happen. He was happiest from the sidelines, pointing fingers (accurately or otherwise), where he was at little risk of having to compromise or of being criticized for imperfect efforts.
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R. Duane Graham
/ April 15, 2016It all depends on how he handles losing. Hillary’s bitter loss to Obama in 2008 was, I would argue, even more painful for her than Bernie’s loss will be to him this time. But she came back and was a helluva team player. She came back and won the respect of someone like me, who was predisposed not to like her or Bill all that much.
I don’t mind having folks around, folks like Bernie had been up until he decided to try to hijack the Democratic Party late in his life, who are uncompromising ideologues. They can make us all think and, if their ideas have persuasive value, can move us in their direction. But they are no good at governing. In fact, they are rarely good at getting enough institutional support to even get the chance. To govern and advance a progressive agenda in this geographically and culturally diverse country obviously requires compromise and a view towards the longer game.
It is hard for some people, for instance, to understand that not everyone, not even everyone in the Democratic Party, wants a Medicare-for-all-type health care system. It just seems so sensible and just to those who support it that they can’t imagine why anyone might be against it. But the truth is that in order for us to get there, it will require the kind of incrementalism that Bernie and his supporters loathe. Americans simply aren’t, as a whole, too welcoming of radicalism, whether it be the Sanders variety or the Cruz variety or, dare I say it, the weird radicalism of a Drumpf.
Bernie will be judged, ultimately, by what happens after June and what he says and does at the convention and during the general election campaign. I hope I am wrong, but I think we’re not going to be all that happy with what he says and does. He just doesn’t seem to have the kind of political disposition that would allow him to be a true team player. He’s always been a loner on a ideological island, and when this flirt with fame is over, I’m afraid that’s where he will return, even if he does offer some mild support for Hillary before he goes. Again, I hope I am wrong.
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Anonymous
/ April 15, 2016Back off Bernie and go home!!
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R. Duane Graham
/ April 15, 2016I’m afraid he’s in it until the bitter end. No sign that even a big loss next Tuesday will turn his attention away from his presidential ambitions toward something he could really do: help elect Democratic senators and congressmen. That’s the saddest part of all this for me.
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melk39
/ April 15, 2016So now he’s saying that she worked for Herbert Hoover? That’s a mess of an answer right there. I mean she was the senator from New York. Every senator does things to protect industries in their home state. Kentucky senator will fight for coal, Texas senator for oil and gas, etc. So of course a New York Senator in that capacity will be protective of banks located in New York. Look at Schumer. No shame in that, that’s how politics works. But an astute opponent could have made some hay out of that if he had done a little bit of homework. Which he clearly did not. This is the pattern, big sweeping statements with little evidence to back them. The real danger is that some of his ideas that have merit are going to get damaged in the process by his shoot from the hip MO. The country needs to nudged back to the middle but we need more just elections to get us there. We need to win the war of ideas just as much as we need to win elections.
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R. Duane Graham
/ April 15, 2016Yes. You wrote, “This is the pattern, big sweeping statements with little evidence to back them. The real danger is that some of his ideas that have merit are going to get damaged in the process by his shoot from the hip MO.” Good point. He could present his ideas, many of which I agree with, without attacking her integrity. It’s just that simple. He has created a distraction by such attacks and has deflected the media’s attention away from the ideas and to the fight, which is always the media’s default position.
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Tige Gibson
/ April 15, 2016You sound like the one full of bullshit.
You said he couldn’t give one example, yet there is one example in your own quote:
>Secretary Clinton was busy giving speeches to Goldman Sachs for $225,000 a speech.
You act like there’s no evidence for these claims. The contributors the Clinton’s campaign and SuperPAC are publicly known. You act like they don’t exist because YOU don’t want to know they exist. This is your problem.
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King Beauregard
/ April 15, 2016So where is the policy that she supported because of that $225,000?
Please tell me you’re at least aware that you haven’t demonstrated any corruption (and neither has Bernie), only the possibility of corruption.
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Anonymous
/ April 16, 2016That Time Elizabeth Warren Accused Hillary Clinton of Switching Her Vote Because of Campaign Donations
By Eric LevitzFollow
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Throwback Liz-day.
In an electrifying exchange over campaign money during Thursday’s debate, Hillary Clinton challenged Bernie Sanders to name one vote that she’d changed because of the influence of big donors. Sanders chose not to go straight back at her. Instead of trying to pin Clinton down on any one vote or policy position, the Vermont senator opted to highlight the influence of corporate money on several fronts — the regulation of Wall Street, Medicare’s inability to negotiate drug prices, Congress’s aversion to tackling climate change — and allow voters to draw their own conclusions about its influence on the former secretary of State.
But had Sanders been better prepared, there was at least one “gotcha” he could have pulled from his sleeve. And he would have been able to call in one of his party’s most popular figures as backup.
Ezra Klein
✔
@ezraklein
Tomorrow, Sanders is going to wake up and wish he had remembered Clinton’s change of heart on the bankruptcy bill
8:30 PM – 4 Feb 2016
* 125 125 Retweets 225 225 likes
Few issues divide the interests of consumers and financial institutions more than bankruptcy. In the late ’90s, one of the top legislative priorities of many banks and credit-card companies was bankruptcy reform — specifically, reforms that would make it more difficult for consumers to shed their debts.
When such legislation began to make its way through Congress, a certain Harvard Law professor wrote an editorial against it, arguing that the bill would disproportionately burden single mothers. First Lady Hillary Clinton read the piece and invited the professor, some finance wonk named Elizabeth Warren, to meet with her about the bill. In Warren’s telling, that meeting ended with Clinton standing up and saying, “Well, I’m convinced. It is our job to stop that awful bill. You help me and I’ll help you.” The legislation passed the House and the Senate, but President Clinton refused to sign it.
Several months later, the First Lady had become a New York senator — one who supported an updated version of that bill. Although the law was not identical to the one Clinton had promised to oppose, it was still anathema to many unions and consumer groups. During Clinton’s 2008 run, her campaign spokesman Phil Singer told the New York Timesthat the former senator had helped to “forge a compromise in the 2001 bill intended to ensure that custodial parents got child-custody payments.”
In a 2004 interview with Bill Moyers, Warren reflected on what might have persuaded Clinton to change her position.
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King Beauregard
/ April 16, 2016So that text you cut and pasted, you’ll notice that it says there were differences between the two bills. Were you at any point curious as to what those differences might be? If you look into it you’ll discover that the 2001 bill corrected or at least improved the child custody issues that caused Hilary to be opposed to the previous version. She rejected a bad piece of legislation and later supported a better one.
—
When such legislation began to make its way through Congress, a certain Harvard Law professor wrote an editorial against it, arguing that the bill would disproportionately burden single mothers. First Lady Hillary Clinton read the piece and invited the professor, some finance wonk named Elizabeth Warren, to meet with her about the bill. In Warren’s telling, that meeting ended with Clinton standing up and saying, “Well, I’m convinced. It is our job to stop that awful bill. You help me and I’ll help you.” The legislation passed the House and the Senate, but President Clinton refused to sign it.
Several months later, the First Lady had become a New York senator — one who supported an updated version of that bill. Although the law was not identical to the one Clinton had promised to oppose, it was still anathema to many unions and consumer groups. During Clinton’s 2008 run, her campaign spokesman Phil Singer told the New York Times that the former senator had helped to “forge a compromise in the 2001 bill intended to ensure that custodial parents got child-custody payments.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/02/did-wall-street-buy-this-vote-from-clinton.html
—
anonymous reels in his line, and he’s hooked … an old boot!
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Anonymous
/ April 17, 2016Sorry buddy, just can’t vote for someone under a FBI investigation. Can you imagine applying for a job and saying, “Well, I’ve got this FBI investigation going on, but I’m ready to work.” It was launched after referral from the inspectors general of the state department and the intelligence community. Only two possible outcomes, she will or will not be indicted. Most investigations from referrals result in indictment. Do you really expect voters to cast a ballot for a job seeker under investigation or indictment?
Maybe you just like her accomplishments at the State Department, but she can’t name one,
http://dailycaller.com/2015/09/17/hillary-clinton-cant-name-a-top-accomplishment-while-secretary-of-state-video/
Or maybe you heard an ex-President tout her service,
http://bipartisanreport.com/2016/04/12/jimmy-carter-just-called-out-hillary-clinton-publicly-and-it-is-setting-the-internet-on-fire/
Could it be the epic success she achieved in bringing peace to Libya or Honduras?
http://www.salon.com/2016/04/15/hillary_clinton_is_lying_about_the_criminal_u_s_backed_coup_in_honduras_it_should_be_as_scandalous_as_libya/
Trey Gowdy has a committee that should have a presentation for Hillary in September, I understand.
Maybe it’s Hillary’s ability to earn 2.9 million dollars speaking to financial institutions and Wall Street since her departure from the State Dept. prior to running for President,
http://m.motherjones.com/politics/2014/05/hillary-clinton-goldman-sachs-private-equity-white-house-2016
Obama never took advantage of speaking fees payday. Of course she can keep all that money without releasing the transcripts of the speeches, where she assures the boys that she will not use the populist rage against them in the election. At what point does the DNC quit rigging elections by refusing to allow independents to vote in primaries, giving enough super delegates that are equivalent of four large states? When do they represent the people and not the choice of the oligarchy?
The self-funded billionaire will not be the choice of the oligarchy so the Hillary will be running against Cruz, since he will be bought and paid for as well.
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R. Duane Graham
/ April 18, 2016Anonymous,
Just a friendly reminder to you for the future. If you put multiple links in a comment, it automatically gets flagged as spam by WordPress. I have to check the spam file periodically to make sure legitimate comments don’t end up there, as yours did over the weekend while I was away.
And to butt into your conversation here (my prerogative!), I would ask you, again, why do you keep using the term “indictment”? Indictments are handed down by grand juries. Do you have evidence that one has been impaneled in this case? Please share. Citing right-wing websites doesn’t count, by the way.
You also wrote,
Let me see. The Democratic Party is a political party that, uh, Democrats run. And the DNC allows the party apparatus in each state to make certain rules regarding whether to allow independents to vote. Last time I checked, independents aren’t Democrats by choice, so I don’t find it unreasonable that some Democrats don’t think independents, possibly Republicans pretending to be independents, should decide who their nominee should be.
Oh, I almost forgot. You wrote this strange sentence: “Trey Gowdy has a committee that should have a presentation for Hillary in September, I understand.” Hmm. I’m not sure why you inserted that into your response, but are we supposed to be afraid of House Republicans who have spent countless hours and dollars for years now investigating and grilling Hillary Clinton and her aides and have come up with exactly nothing? I expect them to go after her, just as you do. But I also expect Republicans to relentlessly and grossly attack Bernie Sanders, should he win the nomination, and bloody him up so bad he will be unrecognizable to either of us. Forget calling him a socialist/communist or an anti-capitalist, which they will most certainly do. He is perhaps most vulnerable on the tax issue. They will destroy him over that. And they have a lot of ammunition, since there are many liberal economists who can see that Bernie’s plans either don’t add up or who will admit that those plans are very expensive and will require massive tax increases that will scare the shit out of Americans.
Either way, both of our candidates will get savaged by the Republican machine. I just think Hillary’s negatives are about as high as they can go right now—after years and years of constant assault—and Bernie’s, while lower now, will skyrocket at a bad time, just when people are thinking about November.
Duane
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ldeefalk
/ April 16, 2016Bernie’s constant requests for her to turn over transcripts of her speeches are no different than those pushing for her emails as Sec’y of State. What she does with her money from the speaking fees is more or less her business but it is no secret she does well at the job. http://zfacts.com/2016/02/clinton-speaking-fees/#too-small
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R. Duane Graham
/ April 18, 2016I don’t know why you have such a hard time understanding what even almost all Bernie supporters themselves admit: Bernie should have had at least one example (the bankruptcy bill is the example of choice) of a vote that was affected by campaign donations. Bernie was asked the question again this morning on CNN and, voilà, he came up with the bankruptcy bill!
This sentence, “Secretary Clinton was busy giving speeches to Goldman Sachs for $225,000 a speech,” is obviously not dispositive, in terms of the claims Bernie and his supporters are making regarding her dishonesty or implied corruption. In fact, I could turn it around and say it is at least some evidence that, like Obama, Clinton could take money from Goldman Sachs and still develop a plan (which she has, by the way) that Goldman Sachs won’t like all that much. Or, using your logic, I could cite that very same statement as proof that Hillary Clinton is as pure as the wind-driven snow!
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