SocraticGadfly: Dem Debate quick thoughts, mainly on Bloomberg, bit on Bernie

February 19, 2020

Dem Debate quick thoughts, mainly on Bloomberg, bit on Bernie

For a man who so calculatingly delayed his entry into the race (he did plan this, bet on it) Bloomberg sure wasn't prepared for oppo research hitting him this quickly and this hard.

And he's sure been thin-skinned about it. This and more showed up in the Las Vegas debate. Politico has a decent summary.

But this isn't just MiniMike. The Donald is the same way. Ross is Boss Perot was the same, too.

It's the CEO syndrome. Corporate heads get largely insulated from criticism by servile boards and on-demand corporate PR staff. They forget about two big things: The media, and two other branches of state or federal government. Trump has gotten enough fawningness from GOP legiscritters that unconstitutional things like his misprision of funds on the fall for which Dems refused to impeach gets covered over by them, too. The third branch? On this, in the American federal judiciary system, the wheels of justice aren't even grinding slowly. To show my age, they're like a 78 rpm record played on the old 16 rpm speed. (Yes, more than 33s and 45s existed at one time, folks.) Compounding the problem is that the Supreme Court, IMO, not only could but should be exercising original review on a lot of these issues and refuses to do so.

Anyway, Bloomberg got some hard hits and didn't take them well.

Bernie? His health probably is good. But, the non-disclosure makes him look like a backtracker. That's because he IS a backtracker on previous pledges, stanners. Just own up and admit it was a gaffe by Bernie, because it was. Now, how he gets off this hook, other than simply saying that the doctors' statements he's offered have met the bar of transparency and moving on, I don't know.

Back to Bloomberg, speaking of backtracking. Five bucks says he doesn't release his back taxes before the April 15 IRS filing deadline. That, too, will be calculated, not because a billionaire can't pay salaried accountants and tax attorneys to work enough overtime to make it so.

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