Ethics often take a back seat to expediency in political campaigns.

[MineralMan]

That's unfortunate whenever it happens. It's worse, though, when it happens during primary elections within the same political party. If unethical behavior is tolerated on the part of staff members of a campaign by the candidate, should we not question the candidate's ethics? I think we should.

Misbehavior by a candidate's high-level staff that wrongly characterizes an opponent candidate of the same party should not be tolerated by any candidate. If it is tolerated, then questions need to be addressed to the candidate about such misbehavior.

While lies, half-truths, and alterations of candidates' statements are pretty commonplace in partisan politics, it should not be acceptable in primary campaigns when the target is another primary candidate of the same party.

Period.

That, as always, is my opinion. Yours might differ.

[Lexee]

1. Our Democrats hold true.

[ArtTownsend]

2. Don't be coy. Who are you talking about?

[MineralMan]

3. Look inward, Grashopper...

Clearly, I'm talking about Sirota's recent nastiness toward Biden. There are threads about it right here.

[ArtTownsend]

4. I'm not a candidate, nor am I affiliated with a campaign.

And politics is a blood sport. Always had been.

[MineralMan]

5. Sirota. He's associated with the person whose picture

is at the bottom of your posts. Check the threads in this forum. Primary campaigns should not be a blood sport, quite frankly. We're all on the same side, you see.

[ArtTownsend]

6. I edited my post. And I support Sanders, not Sirota.

Though I could be persuaded to support another candidate. I like Warren and Klobuchar, for example.

I will vote for the Democratic presidential nominee.

[MineralMan]

7. So, you don't think Sirota's actions affect Sanders' campaign?

I think they do, and negatively. I haven't heard Sanders criticize Sirota's tactics, either.

We will all vote for the Democratic nominee.

[ArtTownsend]

8. I'm disturbed by Sirota's actions but they don't affect my support for Sanders's policy views.

I agree, Sanders should fire him or at least, discipline him. Not sure that will happen, unfortunately.

Yes, we will all support the eventual nominee.

[MineralMan]

13. Then how about Sanders' ethical views?

How do you feel about those? Wouldn't an ethical person have something to say if a major staff person did something unethical? I think so. Perhaps I've missed Senator Sanders' statement on the matter. Please let me know if that's the case.

[Demsrule86]

11. Sirota works for Sanders so Sanders is responsible for what he says and does.

[Gothmog]

9. A deceptively edited video of Joe Biden signals what's coming

Link to tweet

A video that was edited in a monumentally dishonest fashion to make Joe Biden sound racist just circulated all over Twitter. Distressingly, some reporters and people with large Twitter followings tweeted out the video, before others drew their attention to the full context, causing them to backtrack
.
It is simply incredible that anyone in the business of informing people would circulate a video like this before verifying the full context. Have we really learned nothing in the past few years? One hopes this episode will be taken as a cautionary tale of what’s coming.

The video in question, which your humble blogger will not link to, shows only 19 seconds of a 13-minute monologue that Biden delivered in New Hampshire. Biden had been asked by an audience member to speak about his work and his agenda on sexual assault and domestic violence....

One of the original purveyors of this disinformation (again, we won’t link) is still pretending this was an honest depiction, and is accusing those who supplied the corrective context of being the “real” purveyors of disinformation. Take this as a glimpse of what’s coming.....

All this is a sign of what the Democratic nominee could face. It’s no wonder that some Democrats are worried we might even see “deepfake” media manipulations. Imagine such ultra-sophisticated video distortions of Biden’s rambles, retweeted by Trump, and perhaps even by reporters.

Trump views disinformation not as a scourge to be combated in the name of protecting our democracy, but as an ally. In this particular case, Trump has not retweeted the video of Biden — yet. But let’s try to learn from this.

[MineralMan]

10. Exactly. And nothing has been said about that scurrilous edit, either,

by the principal whose minion released the edited video.

When candidates' campaigns from the same party resort to this sort of unethical behavior, it bodes poorly for the rest of the primary campaign.

Whoever hired the person who released this should fire the perpetrator forthwith, I think. Will that happen. Well, likely not.

Sirota is not a good or ethical person, it seems.

[Gothmog]

12. Information is the best defense

Link to tweet

[R B Garr]

14. Agreed 100%. It's not like we haven't seen this tactic before from the very same

perp. Enough is enough.