“Shame on You, Bernie!”: Why Politico's Journalists Aren't Really Journalists

One has been witness to hit-piece after hit-piece against Bernie Sanders – the usual culprits being Clinton memos sent to mainstream media outlets – print, TV and online. It is not surprising that establishment newspapers such as The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post invariably jumped to the attack whenever they were handed an opportunity by Clinton spin-doctors – as did CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC News, NPR, CBC, and PBS.

POLITICO has been part of that very bandwagon which becomes an arm of the Clinton campaign when it comes to the Democratic primary. My purpose is to bring to light a recent string of attack articles on Bernie Sanders, mostly taunting his supporters and casting aspersions on his character, along with the usual deficiency of facts.

One can now smell the stench of the establishment calling on Sanders to drop out – and willing to tell just about any story to demoralize his supporters and demonize him. In an essay titled “Inside the bitter last days of Bernie's revolution” the authors decide that the best way to showcase their reporting skills would be to venture into the territory of armchair psychoanalysts such as Paul Krugman and Harry Enten:

But more than any of them, Sanders is himself filled with resentment, on edge, feeling like he gets no respect -- all while holding on in his head to the enticing but remote chance that Clinton may be indicted before the convention.

It is worth mentioning that the owner of POLITICO, Robert Allbritton (son of banking moghul Joe Allbriton) is a Clinton campaign donor as well as a donor of the Clinton Foundation – the latter of which is mostly a money–laundering-in-return-for-favors operation.

POLITICO’s wisdom is unparalleled. Independents or millenials as a group do not appear to count – even in the general election. Bernie supporters such as Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner are white young men to POLITICO journalists. Did it ever care to report that most of the elected officials supporting Sanders are from minority communities? Don’t even bother asking.

All their Bernie hit pieces seem to cross reference each other. One patronizingly speculates that:

But then at some point in the 2016 campaign, Sanders began to think he could do more than give Clinton an educational push to the left. Maybe what changed his thinking was those primary victories in New Hampshire and Michigan….Whatever the causes, Sanders began to act less like a loss-leader candidate and more like one who could win the nomination, as my colleagues Edward-Isaac Dovere and Gabriel Debenedetti just wrote.

Going to the referred essay, one gleans this:

But convinced since his surprise Michigan win that he could actually win the nomination, Sanders has been on email and the phone, directing elements of the campaign right down to his city-by-city schedule in California. He wants it. He thinks it should be his.

As should be obvious to the reader – no source at all. Now I will proceed to point out why they’re lying when they say that somewhere between February and March 2016 Sanders “realised” that he “in fact did have a shot”. Pure lies. The basic tenets of the Sanders case for the White House at the convention were already in place back in 2015.

1. Within the first 48 hours of announcing his run for the White House (May 2015) – Sanders raised more money than all the Republicans combined if Jeb Bush was excluded, and more than any single candidate save for Hillary Clinton – who announced and went to a billionaire fundraise immediately after. And of course, he got the highest number of donations too.

2. Within the same 48 hours – 175,000 volunteers signed up onto the campaign – unprecedented in American history – and that too without the help of a national party apparatus.

3. Sanders has been polling better against Trump than Hillary Clinton has, since October 2015.

4. In August 2015, Sanders rallied a crowd of 30,000 in LA and 28,000 in Portland, Oregon. The average Clinton crowd size is 300 people, the highest ever being 4,500.

5. He had been leading in New Hampshire by double digits in the polls against Clinton since late-fall of 2015.

6. He has been leading among people under-45 and independents since very early in his run, by overwhelming margins.

7. Hillary was never leading Sanders significantly among women.

This is barely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to media spin by even a single publication. Media serves its corporate owners, only waiting for the whistle to back the Republican Tweedledee or the Democratic candidate and former Secretary of State Tweedledum.