Beware the Public Image

by Steve Rohosky

Bernard Sanders, Inc revels in repeated rants about Hillary Clinton taking money from (fill in his blank) for private speeches. Bragging how HE is above stooping to such a lowly, contemptible capitalistic ploy as accepting that which he ceaselessly sermonizes to be the filthy lucre and no-doubt ill gotten gains of corrupt corporations and clandestine businesses. All for something BS considers as banal as giving a speech. Eewwww…yucky!

Well, guess what? As a current member of the US senate, Barn-Barn CANNOT accept an honorarium–read: payment or other remuneration–for a personal appearance or speech!! Which makes it infinitely easier to adopt a holier-than-attitude towards something, knowing you are prohibited, even if you wanted.

Taken from ethics.senate.gov, pg 7:
“NO honoraria may be received by any Member, officer, or employee.An “honorarium” is a fee for any speech, appearance, or article (including for a series of speeches, appearances, or articles if the series is directly related to an individual’s Senate duties or if payment is made because of an individual’s Senate position). Necessary expenses of travel are not honoraria.”

Once more, the Ol’ Geezer has proven to be the consummate hypocrite by incessantly attacking Hillary Clinton for giving paid speeches–which was well within her rights as a private citizen, following her stint as Secretary of State–while purposely misrepresenting himself to his stupefyingly myopic minions to be the kind of man who wouldn’t deign to stoop so low as to accept payment for speeches.

Of course Sanders wouldn’t, BECAUSE HE CAN’T!! To do as HRC was able would be a congressional ethics violation.

That the media fails to call out Colonial Sanders for his constant lies, innuendo and obfuscations only serves to underscore how deeply entrenched are the desires of the 24 hour news networks for these primaries to be reasonably close and comparatively competitive. But to ignore such fallacious pontifications as Bernard’s one time boast about not accepting money from PACS–he does–or from employees of fossil fuel companies (surprise, surprise!) is deplorable.

Equally so is the way only just now, months into the campaign, are pundits accurately reporting that Sanders voted FOR the very same 1994 Crime Bill he has repeatedly and with great relish savaged Big Bill for signing into law. Hillary has been the incessant target of the ‪#‎BernedOut‬ ones chastising for this bill, too. After all, in perfect Sandersian logic, she is his wife, thus rendering her guilty by extension. That Hillary never cast a ballot for the bill doesn’t seem to matter. You see, to those who exist almost exclusively upon Planet Bernie, supporting ones husband and his policies as then First Lady, is infinitely worse than his “yes” vote as a congressman. Just as that same twisted logic predicates Bernard’s numerous votes to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars pale in comparison to his vote against the Iraq invasion.

I see, said the Pinball Wizard of minions: blind, deaf and unconscionably dumb.

In reality, it takes a special kind of political self delusion to believe voting against the invasion of another country entitles you to a lifetime of chest thumping and special benefits. This while the repeated voting to PAY for the war which resulted from said incursion–the war Sanders claims to have been vehemently against–matters not in the slightest. Or so he would have all those mystified lemmings who flock to see him and delightedly donate hard earned money to Bernard Sanders Inc, postulate.

After all, what’s 5,000 American dead in Iraq when compared to the pork Bernard was able to send back to VT, in the form of some defense contractor jobs. Jobs placed in his state in return for his yes vote on the funding bill. Or do you actually think there couldn’t possibly have been any quid pro quo because Vermont was the perfect place for defense contractors to open a couple of branch offices right after Bernie’s yes vote??

Seemingly desperate for a political and cultural hero in which to blindly believe, BS’s youthful Acolytes–and older ones who have been around long enough to know better–all seem to have fallen under a sort of mass misconception that this man, this politician, is “different.” In reality, he is nothing but a manipulative fraud, slavishly devoted to his archaic “old hippie” late ’50’s to mid Sixties-steeped ideology. The kind of four decades long professional politician who, in order to satisfy his lust for power, deceitfully sells the possibility of fantastical freebies to the youthfully naïve and trusting. Plans a President Sanders will have no more a chance of ushering into being than Trump’s Southern border wall for which he insists he will force Mexico to pay.

The truth of the matter is: BS, Inc is a candidate with an undeniably manufactured public image, the beneficiary of a carefully crafted facade contrived to hide his narcissism and deceit, his misogyny and megalomania. Not to mention other debilitating deficiencies. Deficiencies too crippling, IMHO, for ANYONE who actively seeks to become the President of the United States and leader of the free world.

Hypocrite, thy name is Bernard Sanders.