"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Friday, June 03, 2016

I Begin To Wonder

as the election season progresses, whether we might just be able to do without a president for four years. After all, we haven't had a Congress for six years, and the world hasn't ended.

What sparks this comment is this post from John Aravosis and the attendant discussion in the comment thread. The post itself is about the Sanders campaign's repeated attacks on Peter Staley:

American AIDS activist Peter Staley.
American AIDS activist Peter Staley.

For the second time in a week, the Sanders campaign has launched an oddly personal attack on Peter Staley, one of America’s top AIDS activists. . . .

The attack came once again from Sanders’ senior policy adviser Warren Gunnels, who falsely accused Staley, who has committed his life to HIV activism, of selling out people with AIDS to the pharmaceutical industry.

The Sanders campaign became enraged with Staley and other AIDS activists, including many who are (or were) Bernie Sanders supporters, after the activists called Sanders out for lying about his meeting with the activists last week. In that meeting, the activists raised their concerns about a drug initiative taking place in California, and sponsored by an anti-PrEP organization. When the meeting finished, Sanders issued a press release claiming the activists had joined the Vermont Senator in supporting the initiative.

To be perfectly honest, Sanders lost me a while ago. I was prepared to vote for him in the primary because I'm generally sympathetic to his positions, and then vote for Clinton in the general, since I assumed she would be the nominee.

I've come to the conclusion that Sanders is an idiot. My real concern with him as president was whether he could actually do anything, and it starts to look more and more that my concern was justified. It seems as though he can't even manage a campaign, much less a country.

What's even more interesting than the post, however, is the discussion in the comments thread. Lots of information, a fair amount of vitriol and finger-pointing (but that's normal for blog comments -- at least there is a marked scarcity of trolls) -- one thing about AmericaBlog's commenters is that they're generally well-informed -- and some interesting insights.

It's worth checking out.

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