Yesterday began with an “explosive” allegation by CNN that Bernie Sanders told Elizabeth Warren in a private meeting back in 2018 that a woman could not win the presidency.
The anonymous sources for the CNN story were described as four people with direct knowledge of the contents of the conversation, for which only Bernie and Warren were present.
Sanders quickly denounced the story as “ludicrous” and said “staff who weren’t in the room” were lying about his comments. On Twitter, here and elsewhere, Bernie backers slammed the story as a smear, accused the media of being unfair to Bernie by doing Warren’s dirty work, and in some instances took a turn for the Trumpian by branding the whole tale as manufactured, i.e., “fake news.”
Some pointed to the fact that Warren hadn’t corroborated the account as proof that it was a made-up hit job. Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir opined confidently that once Warren commented, she would say the report “is not true, that it is a lie.”
Late yesterday, however, Warren put out a statement saying that yes, Bernie had indeed told her a woman couldn’t win. “Among the topics that came up,” she said, “was what would happen if Democrats nominated a female candidate. I thought a woman could win; he disagreed.” She went on to say she didn’t want to say more about the conversation and noted she and Bernie had more things in common than things they disagreed about.
So, who’s lying here, Bernie or Warren?
Another possibility is that Bernie just forgot what he said. This seems unlikely (and I’m not just saying that to avoid having charges of ageism thrown at me). Though I do not care much for Bernie — OK, I don’t care for him at all — I’ve never seen any evidence that he’s suffering from any kind of mental weakness, including forgetfulness (not including his delusion IMHO that he can actually get any of his proposals through Congress — but that’s an argument for another day).
One final possibility is that neither is lying and rather that whatever Bernie may have said, Warren may have misconstrued it and her staffers misconstrued it further. On CNN last night, Sanders senior adviser Jeff Weaver suggested as much, saying there would have been a larger conversation about life in the Age of Trump, misogyny, identity politics, the challenges of the coming campaign, etc., and that wires may have gotten crossed, resulting in some misapprehension of what was said.
I find myself in agreement with Weaver, an odd position for me, since I consider him a bit of a loon. It is inconceivable to me that Bernie would suggest to Warren to her face that a woman can’t win. Bernie is (again IMHO) a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them. It’s also inconceivable that either Bernie or Warren would flat-out lie about such a thing. (Note: I’m not much fonder of Warren than I am of Bernie, so my feeling has got nothing to do with him-vs.-her.)
One takeaway: the tenor of Bernie’s response, a full-on, take-no-prisoners, no-room-for-nuance, denunciation of “anonymous sources” in all measure of righteous fury had the flavor, to me, of Trumpian Chosen One egotism. For once, Jeff Weaver was more measured in his comments. How much better and reassuring if Bernie had taken a softer tone while defending himself.
Your mileage may vary on that.
One aside. Suppose Bernie had said he didn’t think a woman could win. Would that have been so bad? He’d not have been alone in that opinion. Any number of people on the left have blamed sexism for Hillary’s loss or at least for the way the media treated her (“But her emails”) in comparison to Trump’s catalogue of horrors.
I’m not even so sure a Jew (Sanders, Steyer, Bloomberg) or a gay guy (Buttigieg) can get elected, either, or at the very least whether that might cost us some votes; even 1-2 percent could make the difference, right, and can we afford that in the present moment? Are we not even allowed to mention these things?
You tell me.
Finally, this whole episode is an object lesson in the lost art of waiting for the facts to come in before reacting. All those comments that Warren not commenting proved Bernie was telling the truth looked pretty silly 12 hours later. i suppose this is a cry into the wilderness, since we no longer live in a time when a considered letter to the editor was the way to respond to matters instead of an instant hot take. Still, maybe restrain that Twitter finger for a bit and see if new information becomes available before sharing your thoughts with the world.
(Note to self: follow your own advice on this.)