Facts matter. This isn’t nuanced stuff about legislative sausage-making.
Sanders opposed TARP, which was money to rescue the financial services industry.
He supported the auto bailout.
Clinton tried to inject nuance in an area where there is no nuance. This was a dishonest attack — and so dishonest that it clearly threw Sanders for a loop. He wasn’t prepared to respond to this attack line, because it was so unexpected — unexpected, because it is fundamentally dishonest.
Sanders got flustered — maybe understandably — and didn’t explain that he did vote for the only bill that was supposed to provide a bailout for the auto industry. He didn’t respond well to Clinton’s surprise attack, but, it’s a lie — on every level. There’s no nuance. Sanders didn’t oppose the auto bailout.
Clinton’s attempt to suggest that Sanders somehow, in some way, opposed the auto bailout is deliberately deceptive.
I’m disappointed in Sec’y Clinton — really disappointed, because this is the lowest her campaign has sunk — and that’s saying something. But I am also disappointed in anyone who tries to defend her line of attack.
Support your candidate, when s/he deserves it. Not when s/he offers up a deliberately deceptive line of attack.
There’s no room for nuance. Sanders opposed TARP, which was passed anyway. Then, the auto bailout issue came up — and he supported it. He voted for cloture, but the GOP blocked it.
Only then, did Pres. Bush decide to use TARP for the auto bailout. When Sanders voted against TARP, the auto bailout was not part of it.
You won’t find anything from him opposing Bush’s decision to use TARP for that purpose, because he didn’t oppose the auto bailout. Ever.
It was a deeply troubling section of the debate for me, because both candidates didn’t seem to know what the hell they were talking about. Clinton was trying to convince the audience that Sanders opposed the bailout of the auto industry — and this didn’t ring true for me.
I was at a watch party in a bar. I went on my phone and read the history to refresh myself. Sanders didn’t contradict her by saying he DID support the auto bailout. He just kept repeating that he opposed the Wall St. bailout. With Google, I could come up with the perfect response, but unfortunately this went on too long on stage, because Sanders didn’t have the perfect response ready for what was an unexpected and dishonest attack line.
The Clinton supporters will keep arguing that there was nuance here — but there isn’t. Clinton was trying to deceive the audience. Plain and simple.
This was by far the lowest moment of the campaign.
--— Update --—
I want to qualify what I've written here. Comments to the piece have brought up a vote in January to release the second half of the original TARP funds to President Obama. I had forgotten about that part of the history and did not realize that Clinton was probably referring to this.
While there was nothing in the bill about supporting the auto industry, there was a letter from Larry Summers that suggested the possibility of "additional assistance" to the auto industry. I still think the attack on Sanders is meant to deceive voters regarding a bill that didn't mention the auto industry, but it's not an out-and-out lie. It is the usual coy Clinton semantics game. This points up why this is such a bad way to play the game, because it opens you up to the criticism I put forth above. Let's just try to be honest with American voters instead.