It’s no secret that the Washington Post wants Bernie Sanders to give up his presidential run so that life will become easier for the Post’s candidate, Hillary Clinton. But this article by John Wagner attacking Sanders for inflicting on taxpayers the cost of his Secret Service detail carries the joke too far.
Wagner reports:
Although Hillary Clinton has clinched the party’s nomination, Sanders retains one of the trappings of a top-notch candidate: A team of agents still guards him at his home, where they’ve constructed a small watch station on the property. They travel with him on commercial and charter flights and use a motorcade to whisk him through cities he visits. And they marched alongside him during a gay-pride event here in his home town after the Orlando shootings.
According to Wagner, “such round-the-clock protection can cost taxpayers more than $38,000 a day.” (Emphasis added) Thus, if Sanders persists “taxpayers may get stuck with a big security bill long after his campaign receded from the daily cable-news cycle.”
Budget hawks at the Washington Post! Who knew?
I’m as eager as most to see the back of Bernie Sanders. He’s an angry old man spouting a bankrupt ideology in the most simplistic terms imaginable. He is doing his best to poison the minds of the youth of America. He makes Donald Trump seem nuanced.
But Sanders has a legitimate reason to continue with his campaign. He wants to maximize his leverage in terms of the Democratic Party’s platform and legislative agenda. In the scheme of things, I’m not offended that this effort is costing taxpayers up to $32,000 a day.
The Post blows off this obvious explanation for Sanders’ persistence and, quoting Clinton operative Jim Manley, suggests that Sanders finds the “accoutrements that come with campaigns. . .intoxicating.” Thus, the Post portrays a candidate whose only positive attribute is his principled nature as an egomaniac who wastes taxpayer dollars so he can hear people yell “Bernie.”
Nice.
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