Any reporter who’s tried to interview Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) knows that what he hates more than anything are questions about Bernie Sanders the Human Being. If such an entity, in fact, exists.
As Mark Leibovich put it in his excellent 2007 profile of the recently sworn-in senator:
Sanders crinkles his face whenever a conversation veers too long from this kind of “important stuff” and into the “silly stuff,” like clothes and style. “I do not like personality profiles,” Sanders told me during our first conversation.
So props to Mark Halperin and John Heilemann — the first-rate political journalists who brought you Game Change — for revealing another side of Sanders on their new Bloomberg TV show, “With All Due Respect.”
Which side, exactly, did they reveal?
The side that makes scary monster noises at his grandchildren. And was a high school track star. And can’t quite answer whether he’d be more inclined to vote for former secretary of state Hillary Clinton for president — or lefty MSNBC talk show host Ed Schultz.
Here’s the monster clip:
Halperin and Heilemann even goaded Sanders into reading a few lines from “Seinfeld” to determine whether the senator actually voiced the faceless George Steinbrenner.
Sanders was a very good sport, but suffice it to say he looked deeply, deeply uncomfortable throughout the interview.
You can (and should) watch the whole thing here by scrolling down a bit and looking for the latest episode of WADR.
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I would like to ask him why he is a Socialist when everyone knows that system eliminates the middle class and opportunity for all Americans. The election on Tuesday was a rebuke of his misguided notions. Does he actually think he is helping anyone or is he just pandering to an easy vote for his own ego and power? A real man would come out and make his case. So far as I can tell, Sanders avoids answering this simple, basic question.
I would like to ask you what planet you’re living on, because Sanders has said throughout his career that he is a *democratic* socialist, a proponent of the kind of political and economic system that has thrived in the Scandinavian countries for decades, giving their people among the strongest middle classes and broadest opportunities in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_model
And of course since this comment was posted he’s pointed this out yet again, as well as that it’s also an American idealistic tradition, embraced by national figures from Franklin Roosevelt to Martin Luther King Jr.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/whats-a-democratic-socialist-bernie-sanders-explains-20151119
Far from being misguided, Sanders is attempting to return the Democratic Party to its former New Deal support for the average citizen, away from the corporatism of neoliberals like the Clintons.