{"id":221111,"date":"2016-02-03T00:13:27","date_gmt":"2016-02-03T00:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/even-praising-his-political-skills-washington-post-still-side-eyes-sanders\/"},"modified":"2016-02-03T00:13:27","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T00:13:27","slug":"even-praising-his-political-skills-washington-post-still-side-eyes-sanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/even-praising-his-political-skills-washington-post-still-side-eyes-sanders\/","title":{"rendered":"Even Praising His Political Skills, Washington Post Still Side-Eyes Sanders"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Washington<\/a><\/p>\n

A Washington Post<\/strong> piece on Iowa (2\/2\/16<\/a>) is accompanied by a video that profiles a Sanders voter: “My heart is with Bernie, but, you know, I’m not sure where my head is right now. Hillary seems like a practical choice.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Despite some by-now familiar imagery\u2014Bernie Sanders is a “self-described democratic socialist” who has been “traveling the country venting his outrage”\u2014the Washington Post<\/strong>\u2019s post-Iowa rundown (2\/2\/16<\/a>) is in some ways an uncomplicated report on a Sanders showing that was “surprising” to a press corps intent on dismissing him into invisibility.<\/p>\n

But even in a piece that seems to straightforwardly chart Sanders’ success in galvanizing new voters and laud his “political skills”\u2014turning what looked like a sleepwalk into “a real race”\u2014political reporter Karen Tumulty still manages to side-eye the candidate with the thumbnail description that his Iowa showing indicates that “Republicans are not the only voters looking for qualities beyond experience and electability.”<\/p>\n

It isn’t just that\u2014once more with feeling\u2014Sanders has experience<\/a>, and it should be voters, not media, who decide who’s electable. The Post<\/strong> is displaying a double standard that allows them to sometimes celebrate political “outsiders”\u2014when they rail against earmarks and the like\u2014while reserving the right to dismiss them when they pose substantive challenge to neoliberal orthodoxy.<\/p>\n

(As for the idea that “Sanders\u2019s vow to blow up the big banks effectively painted Clinton as an ally of Wall Street”\u2014well, it was likely her taking millions from them<\/a> that did that.)<\/p>\n

\n

Janine Jackson is FAIR’s program director and the host of CounterSpin<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Messages can be sent to the Washington Post <\/strong>at letters@washpost.com<\/a>, or via Twitter<\/strong> @washingtonpost<\/a>. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.<\/em><\/p>\n

This piece was reprinted by RINF Alternative News<\/a> with permission from FAIR<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Washington Post piece on Iowa (2\/2\/16) is accompanied by a video that profiles a Sanders voter: “My heart is with Bernie, but, you know, I’m not sure where my head is right now. Hillary seems like a practical choice.” Despite some by-now familiar imagery\u2014Bernie Sanders is a “self-described democratic socialist” who has been “traveling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-221111","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221111\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}