Joan Walsh gets it right. BS is black or white. No nuances, no compromises. One note campaign. [View all]

[Fla Dem]

In Flint Debate, the Clinton-Sanders Clash Gets Rougher

THE NATION
By Joan Walsh
TODAY 7:36 AM

In the meantime, though, what happens to the people who are suffering? That’s where Clinton was strong and Sanders seemed far less engaged.

Take the issue of the 2008 auto bailout, perhaps the thorniest of the debate, on the eve of Tuesday’s Michigan primary. The funds, which saved an estimated 1.5 million jobs, were tucked inside the odious “Troubled Asset Relief Program,” or TARP—better known as the bank bailout—which Sanders opposed. So he voted against the double bailout bill.

Sunday night he stood by that vote, though he reminded Clinton and the crowd that he’d worked to get Congress to take up the auto bailout on its own. That didn’t work out, but Sanders still defended his anti-bailout vote:

If you are talking about the Wall Street bailout, where some of your friends destroyed this economy, when billionaires on Wall Street destroyed this economy, they went to Congress and they said, ‘please, we’ll be good boys, bail us out.’ You know what I said? I said, ‘let the billionaires themselves bail out Wall Street.’

Clinton’s retort is telling:

The Bush administration negotiated the deal. Were there things in it that I didn’t like? Would I have done it differently? Absolutely. But was the auto bailout money in it—the $350 billion that was needed to begin the restructuring of the auto industry? Yes, it was. So when I talk about Senator Sanders being a one-issue candidate, I mean very clearly—you have to make hard choices when you’re in positions of responsibility. The two senators from Michigan stood on the floor and said, “we have to get this money released.” I went with them, and I went with Barack Obama. You did not. If everybody had voted the way he did, I believe the auto industry would have collapsed, taking four million jobs with it.

That exchange sums up the night—and the entire campaign.

http://www.thenation.com/article/in-flint-debate-the-clinton-sanders-clash-gets-rougher/