Wall Street Journal - Standing Up For Bernie Sanders

[TomCADem]

Is it possible that the Wall Street Journal would prefer Bernie Sanders over Trump? Perhaps even they are scared of a Trump Presidency.

http://www.bustle.com/articles/160416-bernie-sanders-may-actually-have-a-wall-street-buddy

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders appears to have some friends in unexpectedly high places — Wall Street. The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial Wednesday called “Saved by the Superdelegates,” declaring in rather impassioned language that Sanders is being cheated by the superdelegate system, that he’ll do a way better job against Trump than Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton would, and that, perhaps, the party should consider a contested convention.

I’m guessing I don’t need to spend a lot of time here noting that Sanders and the Wall Street elite are not buddies. I think it’s safe to say that Wall Street’s paper of record is not, in fact, run by a bunch of Bernie Bros patiently planning the revolution from the inside. Yet, the Wall Street Journal may be feeling the Bern... sort of? The Wall Street Journal has actually run several editorials like this in recent months, including “Bernie Sanders Gets No Respect”and “Taking Sanders Seriously.”

Wednesday's editorial echoes points made by another unexpected, inadvertent quasi-Bernie supporter: Donald Trump. The presumptive Republican nominee has loved tweeting and talking about how the Vermont senator was fighting a rigged, losing game and wasn't given a fair shake by the Democratic primary system.

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But it could also just be that the Wall Street Journal understands on a practical level how bad someone as volatile — and lacking in clear policy — as Trump would be for the American economy in the long run and that it believes the data it cites in the editorial about Sanders being electable against Trump in November. Few (maybe no one) would have expected the Wall Street Journal to be commending Sanders a year ago, but as has been said many, many times this election, politics makes strange bedfellows.

[elleng]

1. Exactly,

'how bad someone as volatile — and lacking in clear policy — as Trump would be for the American economy.'

We may not like or trust much of what they do and why, but they are not all complete fools.

[TomCADem]

2. WaPo - "The Wall Street Journal’s Bernie Sanders-can-win editorial is almost entirely wrong"

Of course, this Washington Post story attacks the WSJ's journalistic integrity and suggests that the WSJ is just trying to stir the pot.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/12/the-wall-street-journals-bernie-sanders-can-win-editorial-is-almost-entirely-wrong/

One should be under no illusions that the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal sincerely thinks that Bernie Sanders could or should be the rightful nominee of the Democratic Party. It's argument to that effect, published Thursday, is a bit of trolling so thorough that one suspects they could barely contain their giggles as they typed it up.

This is how it starts. I had to step away from my computer for a bit after reading it, because I slapped myself in the forehead so hard that I detached both retinas.

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But it's that last line -- "Maybe Democrats should consider a contested convention" -- that is the point of the piece. The editorial board knows that it's just waving its hands and pulling rabbits from hats. Its goal is not to present a logical, rigorous case for why Sanders should be the nominee; its goal is to foment dissension and disruption within the party that it hopes loses in November.

The weirdest assumption it makes, though, is that Democratic superdelegates, largely elected officials and party leaders, would ever care one tiny iota what the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board thought about anything.

[elleng]

4. So pleased to referee a 'fight' between WSJ and WaPo!

[snowy owl]

3. C'mon.Everybody has an agenda. Murdoch always has one. I can't always figure it out.

There are as many motives as their are issues in this campaign. I don't care what the papers say anymore None of this is real journalism and all of them have bias. And all of them in the end have establishment bias. That's the only thing I can count on.