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How Much Does Bernie Sanders Know About Policy?
The Democratic presidential hopeful had a rough interview with the New York Daily News editorial board, struggling to explain what he would do to break up the banks and more if elected.There’s little doubting Bernie Sanders’s core political convictions—he’s been saying the same things for decades, with remarkable consistency. But turning convictions into policy is the challenge, and the Vermont senator’s interview with the editorial board of the New York Daily News raises some questions about his policy chops.
Throughout his interview, Sanders seemed taken aback when he was pressed on policy—and not just on the matters that are peripheral to his approach, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or interrogation of detainees, but even on bread-and-butter matters like breaking up the big banks, the Democratic presidential hopeful came across as tentative, unprepared, or unaware.
It’s striking that there hasn’t been more coverage of Sanders’s policy ideas so far during the campaign, even at this late date, with most of the primary season concluded. He’s even acquired a reputation as something of a wonk, the kind of guy who eschews soaring rhetoric for dry nuts and bolts on the stump—and gets people to love him anyway. The gaps uncovered by the Daily News are not just about pragmatism. (There have, of course, been plenty of accusations, not least from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, that Sanders is offering a deeply unrealistic program. He tends to answer that they fail to grasp that he is building a political revolution.) The question here is not how Sanders would enact policies, but what those policies would be. If the Sanders campaign has shied away from deep dives into policy, this interview might be why: The candidate reveals himself as a far defter diagnostician than clinician.
The most glaring example came early in the encounter, during a discussion of the problem of “too big to fail” banks. There is disagreement among economists on the left over how important, if at all, it is to break up large financial institutions. The board granted Sanders’s argument and asked him how he’d do it, producing an excruciating cat-and-mouse game...
Sanders is the candidate of first principles. That’s a phenomenon that’s been on display repeatedly during the Democratic debates, especially on matters of foreign policy. On the one hand, there’s Hillary Clinton, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East, but also backed the war in Iraq, thus botching the most important foreign-policy decision since Vietnam. On the other hand, there’s Sanders, whose answers about the Middle East are often opaque—see his call for a “Muslim army” to defeat ISIS—but whose gut led him to the correct decision on Iraq. Democratic voters may have to choose whether they prefer Clinton’s poor judgment or Sanders’s ignorance.
The latter was on display at the Daily News during an exchange about the peace process. Could he describe the pullback of Israeli settlements in the West Bank he has encouraged? No: “I'm not going to run the Israeli government. I've got enough problems trying to be a United States senator or maybe President of the United States.”
A moment later, he was asked why he didn’t support Palestinians using the International Criminal Court to try to prosecute Israeli leaders. “Look, why don't I support a million things in the world? I'm just telling you that I happen to believe,” the exasperated senator replied...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/bernie-sanderss-rough-ride-with-the-daily-news/476919/
Throughout his interview, Sanders seemed taken aback when he was pressed on policy—and not just on the matters that are peripheral to his approach, like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or interrogation of detainees, but even on bread-and-butter matters like breaking up the big banks, the Democratic presidential hopeful came across as tentative, unprepared, or unaware.
It’s striking that there hasn’t been more coverage of Sanders’s policy ideas so far during the campaign, even at this late date, with most of the primary season concluded. He’s even acquired a reputation as something of a wonk, the kind of guy who eschews soaring rhetoric for dry nuts and bolts on the stump—and gets people to love him anyway. The gaps uncovered by the Daily News are not just about pragmatism. (There have, of course, been plenty of accusations, not least from Hillary Clinton’s campaign, that Sanders is offering a deeply unrealistic program. He tends to answer that they fail to grasp that he is building a political revolution.) The question here is not how Sanders would enact policies, but what those policies would be. If the Sanders campaign has shied away from deep dives into policy, this interview might be why: The candidate reveals himself as a far defter diagnostician than clinician.
The most glaring example came early in the encounter, during a discussion of the problem of “too big to fail” banks. There is disagreement among economists on the left over how important, if at all, it is to break up large financial institutions. The board granted Sanders’s argument and asked him how he’d do it, producing an excruciating cat-and-mouse game...
Sanders is the candidate of first principles. That’s a phenomenon that’s been on display repeatedly during the Democratic debates, especially on matters of foreign policy. On the one hand, there’s Hillary Clinton, who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the Middle East, but also backed the war in Iraq, thus botching the most important foreign-policy decision since Vietnam. On the other hand, there’s Sanders, whose answers about the Middle East are often opaque—see his call for a “Muslim army” to defeat ISIS—but whose gut led him to the correct decision on Iraq. Democratic voters may have to choose whether they prefer Clinton’s poor judgment or Sanders’s ignorance.
The latter was on display at the Daily News during an exchange about the peace process. Could he describe the pullback of Israeli settlements in the West Bank he has encouraged? No: “I'm not going to run the Israeli government. I've got enough problems trying to be a United States senator or maybe President of the United States.”
A moment later, he was asked why he didn’t support Palestinians using the International Criminal Court to try to prosecute Israeli leaders. “Look, why don't I support a million things in the world? I'm just telling you that I happen to believe,” the exasperated senator replied...
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/04/bernie-sanderss-rough-ride-with-the-daily-news/476919/
13 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
both executive and legislative leadership and accomplishment.
So, y'know, stop lying. That's an order.
