Bernie Sanders is a socialist who flies around the country in private jets. While head of the Senate Judiciary Committee Joe Biden let Clarence Thomas become a Supreme Court justice and helped pass criminal laws that incarcerated too many minority men. Amy Klobuchar is a woman hiding a mean temper behind a Midwestern aw-shucks smile. Elizabeth Warren is too wonky. Apart from being gay, Pete Buttigieg’s two terms as mayor of South Bend, Ind., is too, too trivial to qualify for the presidency and lacking in solid relations with minorities. Tom Steyer has even less experience in public office and we’ve seen how that can impair performance as president. Michael Bloomberg failed as mayor of all the people—read that, minorities—of New York City. Besides, who wants another president who always believes he knows best.
There you have it. Not one Democratic candidate for president passes the Ivory Soap purity test. If you want perfection, just hitch your phone line to the progenitor of the “perfect” phone call to the president of Ukraine. Let’s call off the election right now and cede the Oval Office in perpetuity to The Donald and his offspring, for surely the perfectionist-in-chief dreams each night of surpassing the Kennedys, the Bushes, the Clintons, and, if he knew any history, the Adamses, for spawning political dynasties.
I am tired, as Pearl Bailey used to drawl (google her if you don't know who she was), so tired of pundits who cast doubt on a candidate’s purity when the most tainted incumbent in our history feels empowered to hollow out constitutional rights and governmental and social norms.
I am all for vetting records. But the past is no surety of future behavior, though Donald Trump’s record would argue the opposite. Trump was bigoted as a real estate developer—his actions on immigration, his comments on blacks, Hispanics, Africans and Moslems reveal his bigotry has not left his body.
Unlike Bloomberg, Trump has not apologized for mistakes such as his belief that the Central Park Five raped a jogger. He called for their execution. Even after they were exonerated years later Trump maintained they were guilty.
Given a choice between the “perfect” Trump and any of the remaining imperfect Democrats, do you really want the former?
Now, single issue voters might. Right to Lifers. Israel right or wrong voters. One percenters. Isolationists. Anti-immigrants.
The character of our country was molded in our ability to transform from a closed to a more universal culture.
Like animals that eat their young Democrats are devouring young and old contenders. Men and women. Straight and gay. Liberal, moderate or progressive.
The attacks on Bloomberg have been particularly virulent. Here’s a sampling of anti-Mike venom:
Sharpened knives will be out in force Wednesday night as the candidates debate in Nevada whether Bloomberg appears on the podium or not.
There is nothing wrong with vetting a candidate, but seriously, people of the Democratic party, remember who the ultimate foe is. The state primary program is intended to expose the efficacy of and affinity toward campaign platforms. It is not meant to attack and expose a candidate’s failure to attain purity.
No one, no one can measure up to the idealized candidate.
Not even George Washington is safe from criticism. In time for his birthday February 22, a revisionist take on our first president has hit the bookstands. Suffice to say, he didn't chop down that cherry tree (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/
