I love Bernie Sanders, but...

I'm not even going to delve into the whole Tom DeLay episode--it's clear that there are people out to get him at pretty much any cost, but it's equally true that he's given them an awful lot to work with. I think he needs to, at the very least, resign his leadership position. Should he be cleared, he can always be reappointed; and it certainly doesn't take a genius to come up with a spin such as, "These incessant, partisan, ad hominem attacks are achieving their goal: making it impossible for me to continue to work effectively for my party. I'm therefore stepping down until the Ethics Committee clears me of these false charges--let them do what they want to me, but I will not allow them to bring down the party America has chosen to represent it."

OK, I said I wouldn't delve into it...here's the point:

Bernie Sanders, the self-described socialist Representative from Vermont, is throwing a bit of a fit at recent local coverage of the fact that he has family members on his payroll. Now, this is not illegal or even unethical by current standards (indeed, it's fairly common); but it is one of the sticks with which the left is whacking DeLay. Sanders' response could easily have been, "I have nothing to hide/These were reasonable payments for reasonable services rendered" and, since he is not under investigation, that would probably have been that. But instead, he lashed out at the tiny local newspaper, saying:

Your story was a lie, and I don't talk to people who lie.

I will never understand what it is about politicians that make them think a defiant attitude brings less attention than admitting an innocuous truth. Clearly, Sanders felt he was being painted with the same brush that is being used against DeLay; and admittedly I don't know whether the Bennington Banner has been hostile to him in the past.

But as a Banner editorial correctly pointed out, this raises the specter of press control--packing briefings with friendly reporters and the like (where have I heard this accusation lobbed before?). Sanders is a firebrand and a breath of fresh air (I enjoy hearing him spar with Alan Greenspan at Humphrey-Hawkins time, even though I disagree with everything Bernie says), but that's the kind of charm that rubs off very easily when coupled with the word "hypocrite."