WaPo Hits Sanders Again: His Ideas Are ‘Not Very Well Thought Out’

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., speaks during a campaign rally at the Sondheim Center, on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Fairfield, Iowa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
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The Washington Post editorial board responded Thursday evening to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) critiques of their previous editorial bashing his presidential campaign, saying he misrepresented their arguments and his ideas are “not very well thought out.”

The editorial board said they were not troubled by Sanders’ “radical” ideas, but by how he planned to implement them.

“What concerns us is not that Mr. Sanders’s program to tackle these issues is ‘radical,’ as he put it, but that it is not very well thought out,” the editorial board wrote.

Specifically, the editorial board criticized Sanders’ plan for a single-payer health care system.

“Instead, he promises comprehensive benefits without seriously discussing the inevitable trade-offs. That is not just bold; it is half-baked,” the editorial board wrote.

Sanders said Thursday that the editorial board’s critiques of his campaign platform were “not a new argument.”

The editorial board then turned that critique of something old masquerading as something new back on the senator’s campaign.

“His campaign isn’t so much based on a new vision as on that old tactic known as overpromising,” it wrote.

The Washington Post has not endorsed a candidate for 2016. It endorsed Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012.

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Notable Replies

  1. Buckle up… a rough thread ahead…

  2. Trump’s idea of banning Muslims…Cruz’ constitutional amendments…Paul and his end the Fed fetish…pretty much everything Carson says…etc…if WaPo wants to criticize candidates for “not very well thought out” ideas, they’ve got a lot of writing to do.

  3. I think that’s different. That’s wingnuttery. I think WaPo sees the legitimacy of Bernie’s ideas (there is no legitimacy in Cruz or Trump), but he hasn’t been clear at all how he’s going to deliver. That’s the point.

  4. OK, Berniacs. After you get through trashing WaPo and railing about Bezos being in the tank for Hillary, reflect on this. Even a broken clock can be right twice a day. Now Bernie is getting the kind of scrutiny that Hillary has been getting for 25 years and he has a glass jaw.

  5. Avatar for mantan mantan says:

    The press should focus more on reporting and less on shaping…

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