Lippman writes that, in his 2020 bid for the presidency, Sanders faces
"hard feelings that remain to this day after the contentious 2016 Democratic primary. Many in the party continue to believe the Vermont senator played a role in contributing to Clinton's defeat in November because of his criticisms of her prior to the general election, and his refusal to concede earlier when it appeared he had little mathematical chance of securing the party nomination."Is this true, or is this merely a view held by a relative handful of extreme Clinton partisans like the Clinton personality-cult that hangs out on Twitter and obsessively repeat such claims? Sanders' favorability polling over the last two years has shown that he is overwhelmingly popular with Democrats--around 80%--while Dems with a "very unfavorable" view of Sanders have hovered between only 3-7%. The latest Harvard/Harris poll from the end of January puts that number at 6%, with an additional 10% expressing only an "unfavorable" view, while 76% of Dems viewed Sanders favorably. Via his set-up, Lippman arguably both misrepresents this state of affairs and privileges a view held by what is, in reality, an extreme minority. This "many in the party," he writes, "are eager to point out Sanders' flaws and examples of what they perceive to be examples of hypocrisy now that the one-time underdog rates as one of the front-runners in the crowded Democratic field."
And Lippman is apparently eager to assist them. Lippman uses this remarkable comment:
"'I'm not shocked that while thousands of volunteers braved the heat and cold to knock on doors until their fingers bled in a desperate effort to stop Donald Trump, his Royal Majesty King Bernie Sanders would only deign to leave his plush D.C. office or his brand new second home on the lake if he was flown around on a cushy private jet like a billionaire master of the universe,' said Zac Petkanas, who was the director of rapid response for the Clinton campaign."If one didn't know anything else, that seems like the sort of thing that may force a journalist to consider the possibility that this is just some hack with an axe to grind who may just be crooking him, eh? Lippman instead uses it to establish the tone of his piece. Petkanas' characterization is, of course, entirely at odds with Sanders' persona. Indeed, while the Clintons, who have made hundreds of millions of dollars over the years, have an estimated net worth of $45 million, fly cushy private jets everywhere and live a lavish lifestyle of which most Americans can only dream, Sanders was one of the least wealthy senators--hardly some Master of the Universe. Eleven days before this Politico piece ran, Petkanas himself had authored an op-ed for NBC in which he'd rather laughably suggested that Sanders had faced no serious criticism during the 2016 primary campaign--a favorite chestnut of the Clinton personality cult--and gloated at the idea that now, Sanders will face the same scrutiny as Clinton.[1] All things that should give a journalist pause.
After Sanders dropped out of the 2016 race and endorsed Clinton, he went to work as a surrogate for her campaign, traveling the U.S. in an effort to drum up the vote for her. The tale peddled by the Clinton staffers who talked to Lippman is that Sanders insisted on chartering expensive private jets as his "preferred mode of travel," causing tension with the Clinton campaign that preferred Sanders to travel on cheaper commercial flights. "We would try to fight it as much as possible because of cost and availability of planes, but they would request [a jet] every time," said one of Lippman's sources. "To the Clinton staff," Lippman writes, "the issue of the senator and the private jets became so cumbersome that it turned into 'a running joke in the office,' said one former Clinton staffer."
The story told Lippman by Sanders' staffers is straightforward:
"Sanders spokesperson Arianna Jones said it was physically impossible to get to all of the event locations in such a short period of time without chartered flights, especially since the senator was traveling to many smaller markets with limited commercial air travel options.That's entirely plausible (and the undeniably grueling pace of it speaks to Petkanas' characterization of these events as well).
"'That’s why chartered flights were used: to make sure Sen. Sanders could get to as many locations as quickly as possible in the effort to help the Democratic ticket defeat Donald Trump,' she said. 'Sen. Sanders campaigned so aggressively for Secretary Clinton, at such a grueling pace, it became a story unto itself, setting the model for how a former opponent can support a nominee in a general election.'
"In the final three months before Election Day 2016, Sanders held 39 rallies in 13 states on behalf of Clinton’s campaign, according to Jones, including 17 events in 11 states in the last week alone."
All of this air travel was to meet a schedule set by the Clinton campaign itself. Was Sanders gratuitously requesting private jets to meet it or was he only making such requests when commercial flights wouldn't cover it? That's not an unknowable question. Commercial flight schedules can be checked against the campaign schedule easily enough.
More to the point, if the Clinton staffers' allegations are true, they should be able to produce documentation to show where Sanders was insisting on private jets when commercial flights were available.
The credibility of their entire story hinges on this, but if Lippman ever even requested such documentation, he gives no indication of doing so. If he ever investigated the matter himself, he gives no indication of doing so. Lippman provides no documentation whatsoever for the Clinton staffers' claims. Without this, there is no story. But Politico ran Lippman's article anyway, smearing Sanders without a shred of evidence that this tale being pitched to its "journalist" was anything more than a bunch of bullshit being spun by rabid Clinton partisans with an axe to grind. That they may have coordinated this narrative would be a story in itself--former Clinton staffers conspiring to smear the current Sanders campaign--but that apparently isn't a story in which Politico is interested.
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| Politico's Daniel Lippman, #stillwithering |
Here's something else to make you smile: Petkanas is the only Clinton staffer willing to go on the record with these allegations. The only other Clinton staffer willing to put his name anywhere near Lippman's article was former Clinton campaign manager Robby Mook, who apparently wanted no part of the Sanders-bashing. "We needed all hands on deck, including Bernie," Mook said in his only statement on the matter, "and we were grateful for his support and the generous amount of time he gave the campaign." All of the Clinton staffers making these allegations would only do so only behind the cloak of anonymity. By contrast, all of the Sanders staffers quoted by Lippman were willing to go on the record.
Why would the Clinton staffers be granted anonymity in this matter in the first place? They aren't deep government operatives discussing national security secrets and in fear of legal retribution should they affix their names to any of this. The inflammatory nature of their charges and the fact that they're completely unsubstantiated makes the grant of anonymity even more inappropriate.
The hapless reader has to dig 30 paragraphs into the story before encountering this:
"Private jet travel on the campaign trail is not uncommon--either for candidates like Clinton or a top surrogate tasked with stumping for them. Often it is the most efficient mode of transportation, particularly when events are in locations where commercial air travel options are limited.The cost of Sanders' private flights during the 2016 campaign is pegged in the article at $100,000. To put that in perspective:
"One veteran Democratic operative who oversaw surrogates for past presidential campaigns said providing private planes is standard practice for the most important surrogate of a presidential campaign in the general election.
"In addition to Sanders, the Clinton campaign footed the private plane bill on occasion for several top celebrities, among them Beyonce, Jay Z and Katy Perry. But as a rule, when political surrogates made requests for private jets, the campaign’s answer was no--except when it came to Sanders, said one former Clinton staffer."
"The Clinton campaign itself spent a total of $15.9 million on jet charter company Executive Flightways in the 2016 campaign, according to a review of FEC records. That money was used to ferry Hillary Clinton, former President Bill Clinton, vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine, Sanders, major celebrities, and Clinton’s traveling press corps."Unmentioned in the article, though reported during the campaign, is the fact that Clinton insisted on flying back home every night while "on" the campaign trail--sleeping in her own bed in her Westchester County, N.Y. mansion then starting over the next day.
Toward the end, Lippman, writing in his own voice, returns to the charge of hypocrisy against Sanders, now treating the entirely unsubstantiated claim that Sanders has a "penchant for private jet travel" as an established fact:
"The revelation of Sanders’ penchant for private jet travel, both in 2016 and in the subsequent years, could surface as an issue for him since he often demands the U.S. do its part to fight global climate change--to which CO2 emissions from aviation is a contributor."The notion that Sanders--or anyone concerned about climate change--is somehow hypocritical if they don't take a vow of poverty and walk across the country, eschewing all modern means of travel, is unworthy of the the bandwidth wasted to transmit it. Hillary Clinton herself has discussed the dangers of climate change (though she dropped such talk as soon as Sanders dropped out, so as not to offend the big donors on which she depends), but her air-travel doesn't get this scrutiny nor her any empty accusations of hypocrisy for it, even as her own underlings act as the source for this "story." Lippman reports that last year, Sanders spent "$342,000 on Apollo Jets, a private jet service," money that "was used primarily to pay for a nine-day, nine-state tour to support Democratic candidates across the country" (Sanders spokesman Arianna Jones says "the campaign purchased carbon offsets to zero out the emissions produced on the trip."). He also notes Sanders' 2017 participation in the DNC-organized "unity tour" across 8 states, for which Sanders paid the bulk of the cost.
Though Lippman doesn't make note of it, Sanders has, in fact, spent the last 2 1/2 years on constant tours across the U.S. on behalf of Democratic causes and candidates--those that will confront the threat of climate change. It's been an extraordinary effort unmatched by anyone in politics. But in politics, it seems--at least when it comes to certain Democratic insiders--no good deed goes unpunished.
It's a matter of public record that Sanders campaigned for Hillary Clinton in 2016 much harder than Clinton ever campaigned for Obama in 2008 and delivered a larger share of his voters to her than she did her own to Obama. For his troubles, Sanders has gotten little more than grief. If one discusses public affairs on Twitter, it's a regular occurrence to encounter Clinton cultists who insist Sanders did next to nothing to assist in Clinton's election. This fiction has been fed by Clinton herself, who goes around in the press saying things like this:
"When I lost to Barack Obama, I immediately turned around, I endorsed him, I worked for him, I convinced my supporters to vote for him. I didn't get the same respect from my primary opponent."The press has refused to scandalize such comments and Sanders has done little to respond to them, so it's appropriate to end on the words of Sanders' 2016 spokesman Michael Briggs, quoted by Lippman. He says some things that have needed to be said for a long time now, describing Clinton and her staff as "total ingrates":
"'You can see why she’s one of the most disliked politicians in America. She’s not nice. Her people are not nice,' he said. '[Sanders] busted his tail to fly all over the country to talk about why it made sense to elect Hillary Clinton and the thanks that [we] get is this kind of petty stupid sniping a couple years after the fact.'To that, one should add press outlets who, in their fervor to tear down a progressive presidential challenger, uncritically parrot those same assholes.
"'It doesn’t make me feel good to feel this way but they’re some of the biggest assholes in American politics,' he added."
--j.
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[1] In the real world, Sanders was subjected to an endless barrage of negative--and typically scurrilous--attacks by the press throughout 2016 (as soon as the "Bernie Blackout" of 2015 began to life). The idea that he faced no criticism was debunked at the time, but has taken on a life of its own as an ubiquitous talking-point among the Clinton personality cult on Twitter. In his article, Petkanas offered "here's what voters missed" about Sanders, then went on to cover a handful of issues, mostly Sanders' votes against a handful of gun-control measures, that were, in fact, extensively covered throughout 2016. Petkanas also writes of Sanders' "relentless attacks on Clinton... over the 1994 Crime Bill"; in reality, Sanders never attacked Clinton for that bill, for which he, himself, voted.
