or example, the Sanders campaign sent out an edited transcript of something Biden said about Social Security, claiming that he agreed with former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan. Politifact rated that statement false. Here is the part of the speech they left out.
Now, I don’t know a whole lot of people in the top one-tenth of 1 percent or the top 1 percent who are relying on Social Security when they retire. I don’t know a lot of them. Maybe you guys do. So we need a pro-growth, progressive tax code that treats workers as job creators, as well, not just investors; that gets rid of unprotective loopholes like stepped-up basis; and it raises enough revenue to make sure that the Social Security and Medicare can stay, it still needs adjustments, but can stay; and pay for the things we all acknowledge will grow the country.

Since the campaign got caught in that lie, Sanders supporters have attempted to claim that Biden has been advocating for cutting Social Security for 40 years. As is often the case with disinformation, that is based on a half-truth. To solve a budget impasse in 1995, Biden supported a freeze on all federal spending, including cost of living adjustments to Social Security. Then there was his support for an Obama proposal to change the way cost of living increases were calculated, including both the income tax tables and Social Security. But the Sanders campaign turned those positions into an accusation that Biden attempted to “slash Social Security.”
An honest look at the totality of Biden’s position on Social Security would come from listening to Jared Bernstein, a progressive economist who served as an advisor to the former vice president.
https://twitter.com/econjared/status/1218900635908747264
.....Some of us spoke up when Sanders hired David Sirota because his modus operandi was obvious to anyone who knew his history. Sirota has a reputation of being a ruthless attack dog. The campaign had to know that when they hired him. But now it seems that Sirota went too far with his attacks and his boss has been forced to apologize.

It is clear that the Sanders campaign will rely on attacks against his opponents. But this latest incident demonstrates that they are still struggling with where the boundaries are for those negative attacks. It is good to know that, at least for the candidate himself, accusing Biden of being corrupt is outside the boundary.

Former Vice President Joe Biden picked up a key North Carolina endorsement Monday.

State Sen. Paul Lowe, chairman of the North Carolina Legislative Black Caucus, endorsed Biden for president. The caucus includes 39 state lawmakers, including members of other ethnic minority groups. Lowe is a pastor who represents Winston-Salem and Forsyth County.

Biden, a top contender for the Democratic presidential nomination, has had a lead with African-American voters throughout the campaign.

“This Country is more divided today than at any time since the Civil War. In order to heal those divides we must elect leadership that will work to bring all of us together,” Lowe said in a statement. “Vice President Joe Biden will begin the process of bringing all Americans together: One America for all!”

She also recalled that Sanders in 2016 claimed she was “unqualified” although she “had a lot more experience than he did, and got a lot more done than he had, but that was his attack on me.” She warned, “I just think people need to pay attention because we want, hopefully, to elect a president who’s going to try to bring us together, and not either turn a blind eye, or actually reward the kind of insulting, attacking, demeaning, degrading behavior that we’ve seen from this current administration.”.

This comes on the heels of another flap in which Sanders publicly apologized to former vice president Joe Biden for his campaign sending around an op-ed accusing Biden of corruption — a rare moment of contrition for Sanders.

And in yet another blowup over Sanders’s honesty, his attempt to insinuate that Biden favored Social Security cuts (taking a sarcastic comment out of context) was rated false by pundits and fact-checkers. Paul Krugman of the New York Times blasted Sanders for this move: “The Sanders campaign has flat-out lied about things Biden said in 2018 about Social Security, and it has refused to admit the falsehood. This is bad; it is, indeed, almost Trumpian.”....

Warren wants to “fight” while Buttigieg wants to “bring people together.” Sanders thinks capitalism is crooked and capitalists are crooks; Klobuchar wants to be the president not for half of America, but for all of America. To some extent, this contrast is the difference between leading a movement where getting things done and making deals are irrelevant (or even a sign of weakness!) and trying to govern in the messy world of real politics wherein the other party will never vanish and disagreements will divide even one’s own party.

If Sanders is feeling the heat now, it is only because his critics and competitors are sick of giving him a free pass to present himself as an honest, pure idealist while playing Trumpian politics. Put differently, two women — Warren and now Clinton — have had enough of his thinly disguised misogyny.

The New York Times editorial board’s presidential endorsement — complete with a hyped reality-TV show to announce the winner (though there wasn’t one) — is objectionable on many grounds. It oozed with self-importance while failing to actually endorse a candidate (instead it gave the nod to both Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, since it is so hard to choose, you see). It was condescending. (“[Former South Bend, Ind., mayor Pete Buttigieg] showing in the lead-up to the primaries predicts a bright political future; we look forward to him working his way up.”) It made itself, videoed in its august boardroom in the clouds of the New York skyline, the story while showing off its lack of connection to those who live beyond the confines of the five boroughs. (One is reminded of the famous New Yorker cover “View of the World from 9th Avenue,” portraying everything beyond New York City as a vast wasteland.)

In providing this self-parody, the endorsement raises a serious issue about the media’s perception of Democratic voters. Of Joe Biden, it declared, “Mr. Biden maintains a lead in national polls, but that may be a measure of familiarity as much as voter intention.” It is hard to imagine anything more contemptuous of voters, African American voters specifically, who are deeply attached to Barack Obama’s vice president.

We are to believe Biden’s supporters (including, in some polls, the majority of African American voters in the primary electorate), simply do not know better? They do not mean to support Biden, the theory goes. They just remember the name.

Indeed, race and support from critical non-white voters do not figure in the non-endorsement/dual-endorsement. This is not meant as a criticism of either Klobuchar or Warren, but of the cluelessness in evaluating a Democratic nominee able to beat President Trump without so much as a nod to the essential support the nominee will have to inspire among African American voters.....

Perhaps that nominee will be either Warren or Klobuchar. Perhaps one of them, or another contender, will capture the support of African American voters. However, ignoring these voters and showing disdain for their political choice tells us more about the endorsers than it does about any candidate. And it explains why the media remain baffled by Biden’s staying power at the top of national polls.