Showing posts with label Cokie and Steve Roberts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cokie and Steve Roberts. Show all posts

Monday, May 23, 2016

Froma Harrop insinuates that Bernie Sanders is a racist: Is Froma pimping for Hillary?

The media elite are furious that Bernie Sanders won't go away and that he continues to win primary elections. And some journalists have resorted to making wild accusations about Sanders and his campaign.

Froma Harrop's piece, which appeared last week, is particularly nasty. Appearing under a headline entitled "Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite,' Harrop insinuated that Bernie's campaign is associated with racism. She even accused "Sanders' white posses" of "invading campaign events of other presidential contenders, including Donald Trump rallies. But Harrop cited no evidence to support such a charge.

The liberal media can't have it both ways. Most liberal commentators argue that Trump's rallies are disrupted because Trump incites violence by his message and tone. But now Harrop suggests that it is those nasty Bernie supporters who are causing all the ruckus.

She also cynically interpreted Bernie's observation that his rallies were largely peaceful even when held in "high crime areas."  According to Harrop, "high crime areas" is a veiled reference to African American neighborhoods.

Harrop admits--as she must--that Bernie has a "staunch civil rights record." Indeed, Bernie was arrested in 1963 for participating in a civil rights protest against segregated schools in Chicago; and he was active in the Congress On Race Equality (CORE) during the 1960s. Does Hillary have a comparable civil rights record? No, she does not.

Perhaps the most ridiculous part of Harrop's hatchet job on Bernie was her insinuation that he moved to Vermont, which she described as "the whitest state in the nation," for racist reasons. Vermont, Harrop confides, "had become a safe haven for liberals leaving--the word then was 'fleeing'--the cities."

What a pile of horse manure! A great many states have low minority populations--Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, Vermont, Maine. Is Harrop suggesting that people who move to those states are a bunch of racists? If that's true, then pack me to a re-education camp because I lived in Alaska for nine years during the 1980s.

In my view, Harrop is one of a band of panting puppies eager to assist Hillary Clinton clinch the Democratic presidential nomination by denigrating Bernie Sanders--the only genuinely decent candidate left in the race. Cokie and Steve Roberts performed a similar service for Hillary in an op ed essay as did Frank Bruni of the New York Times, who suggested that Bernie was a sore loser because he didn't drop out of the race for president.

But it is the liberal media elites who are the sore losers. And what they have lost is the public's respect for their journalistic integrity. And that's why millions of Americans have decided to think for themselves during this election cycle instead of allowing CNN, the New York Times, and journalistic lap dogs like Froma Harrop to do their thinking for them.

I hate to break the news to you, Froma, but a lot of Americans find Hillary totally unacceptable as a president; and insinuating that Bernie is a racist is not the way to persuade Americans to change their minds.

Who is that guy?
References

Frank Bruni. The Cult of Sore Losers. New York Times, April 26, 2016. Accessible at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/27/opinion/the-cult-of-sore-losers.html?_r=0

Froma Harrop. Bernie Sanders and Racism Lite. Seattle Times, May 19, 2016. Accessible at http://www.seattletimes.com/author/froma-harrop/

Tim Murphy. Here's What Bernie Sanders Actually Did In the Civil Rights Movement. Mother Jones, February 11, 2016. Accessible at http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2016/02/bernie-sanders-core-university-chicago



Monday, April 25, 2016

Cokie & Steve Roberts urge Bernie to take a fall for Hillary: Old croakers with outmoded ideas about what is good for America

Cokie and Steve Roberts published an op ed essay today urging Bernie Sanders to back off on his presidential campaign so he won't hurt Hillary Clinton's chances of beating Donald Trump in November.

"If you want to stay in the race to propound your policy ideas, fine," the Roberts couple counseled Bernie. "But don't keep undercutting the one candidate who can save the party--and the country--from a President Trump."

I read the Roberts' op ed essay in the Baton Rouge Advocate, where it appeared under a photo of Cokie and Steve looking like they are in their 40s. But Cokie is 72 years old,and Steve is 73! Frankly, their ideas are as outmoded as their media photos.

In essence, the Roberts are arguing that Bernie should either get out of the presidential race or tone down his energy so that Hillary will be assured of beating Donald Trump.  Indeed, they are pointedly urging him to take fall for Hillary in order to save the Democratic Party.

But most Bernie supporters don't want to save the Democratic Party if it means propping up a corrupt gang of cronies and insiders who are all beholden to the corporate interests. I for one don't give a damn about the Democratic Party. I registered as a Democrat for the first time in December for no other reason than to vote for Bernie in the Louisiana Democratic primary.

The Roberts also urge Bernie to get out of the race or take a powder so that Hillary will be in a stronger position to beat Donald Trump in the fall. But many Bernie supporters don't see Hillary as an improvement over Trump. The Roberts themselves admit in their op ed essay that only 19 percent of voters think Hillary is honest. Even among Democrats, only 40 percent of Democratic voters trust her.

Donald Trump has big negatives for sure. But his negatives are going down in the polls, and Hillary's are going up. I predict by September, about the same percentage of Americans will find both candidates odious.

Cokie and Steve don't realize that the United States has changed. Establishment politics is totally unacceptable to a great many Americans--particularly young Americans. If it is a choice between the Donster and Crooked Hillary, millions of fair-minded progressive American voters will have a great deal of trouble deciding which candidate is the lesser of two evils.


Cokie and Steve want Bernie to take a fall for Hillary

References

Cokie & Steve Roberts. For party's sake, time for Sanders to back off. Baton Rouge Advocate, April 25, 2016, p. 5B. Online version of essay accessible at http://www.uexpress.com/cokie-and-steven-roberts/2016/4/20/time-for-bernie-to-back-off