Is this the “kitchen sink” Bernie warned his supporters was coming? The Observer is an upscale, classy, arty, sophistical and slightly edgy publication—offhand, I’d guess half its readers are over 65 and make $200K-plus a year from investments. These are Hillary’s kinda folks. So, you’d expect this rag to be doing the Clintons’ dirty work...
By this point in the presidential primaries, the skeletons are already being exorcised from the candidates’ closets. Recent revelations include Marco Rubio’s 1990 arrest alleging his involvement in a gay porn ring, and Hillary Clinton allegedly crossing a picket line with Bill on their first date. But it’s the candidate no one expected to find any dirt on, whose message, values and voting record have stayed consistent for 30 years, that may have the darkest past of all.
After revealing what it discovered, The Observer goes on to provide some background context (below). And just to catch unwary Bernie fans off guard, they put the whole exposé under the misleadingly harmless-sounding headline: "Bernie's folk album is the best thing you'll hear all week" (That’s a link to the full story.)
Underneath the YouTube video for the album’s trailer, audio engineer Todd R. Lockwood remembers thinking up the idea in 1987. “The idea for this album came to me over a cup of coffee at a Burlington café,” he writes. “The morning regulars thought I was out of my mind, but the more I thought about it, the more intriguing the idea seemed. Our mayor, Bernie Sanders, had established himself as a no-nonsense problem solver and someone who didn’t mince words—but not the sort of person you would imagine making a record. This paradox appealed to me.”
When Mr. Lockwood went to Bernie with the idea, he explains, “The project was more than a novelty. It had purpose. Bernie chose the music: five protest songs from the ’50s and early ’60s. I hired arranger Don Sidney to update the songs with contemporary rhythms.”
So, was it just a harmless puff piece after all? Hardly.
“No nonsense problem solver” !!!??? That’s a dead give-away!
Clearly The Observer is determined to undermine Sanders’ carefully-cultivated image as the pure idealist raindows-and-unicorns dreamer, offering airy happy-talk about big plans, not bothering with any detailed proposals—which Sanders’ strategists and spinners know is the way to win over the innocent trusting kids who flock to him in droves—as well as the working-class men and women too exhausted, worried and fed up to have the kind of intellectual clarity that would make them more discerning before they toss away their vote to whoever offers them the most free stuff.
It’s part of the “just like all the other politicians” narrative scripted by the Clinton campaign to bring him down.
But the public won’t be fooled by The Observer’s hit job. For all their diabolical sophistication, the character assassins forgot that not many “other politicians” have earned the mundane, boring title of “no-nonsense problem solver”. They may apply it to themselves and pay others say it about them, and they may even insert it into the political dialogue during campaigns. But their implication that this view of the mayor is shared by the morning regulars at a greasy spoon, the kind of dullards who might be expected to repeatedly re-elect a “no-nonsense problem-solver” regardless of his socialist leanings, is a dead give-away. It’s just too incredible.
Whatever the verdict on the musical quality of his voice, Sanders at least sounds like he really means it. Which seems to count for quite a lot these days...
In response to all the complaints about my careless omission of Woody Guthrie (among others) from the poll, here’s one of his best (and most topical) songs, performed by his son, with the heartbreaking beautiful soprano of Emmylou Harris...
and here’s another woman to add a bit of gender balance— too late to include in the poll…
“Freight Train” starts at 4:20, but the interview is worth a listen too.