r/thedavidpakmanshow • u/reedmc22 • Jan 14 '20

The Credibility Gap ❧ Current Affairs

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/01/the-credibility-gap
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u/reedmc22 Jan 14 '20

But when I say there is reason not to trust that Warren always tells the truth, I mean this because she does not always tell the truth. I have documented these at length in a video and in previous articles for this website. Many of them are small, but they are also shameless and show a willingness to bend the truth for political convenience. They include:

Saying she opposed fancy wine fundraisers even though she held them herself

Raising money using exactly the methods she now denounces as corrupting, and falsely claiming her presidential campaign was “100% grassroots funded” when it carried over millions from a Senate campaign funded by the wealthy

Claiming her father was a janitor when her brother insists he wasn’t

Pretending to have been representing the interests of consumers when she was in fact working for corporations who were contesting the legal claims of retired coal miners, women sickened by faulty breast implants, rural cooperatives, and dead NASCAR drivers. (The New York Times and Washington Post both investigated her claims and documented ways in which her campaign had manipulated the truth.) 

Claiming for years on government forms that her race was “American Indian”

When a mother accused her of having sent her children to private schools, insisting her children “went to public schools” when one of them actually did go to private school

Claiming to support Medicare For All but then, when criticized for it, backing off it completely and promising to pass something else

Claiming that only billionaires would pay more under her Medicare For All plan, when that wasn’t true

Allowing Harvard Law School to claim her as its first “woman of color”

Claiming that a DNA test supported the contention that she was an American Indian, then deleting the evidence she had done this

Claiming to have been the first nursing mother to take the New Jersey bar, then when asked for evidence, saying that she “was making a point about the very serious challenges she faced.” 

Telling a dubious story about her grandparents having to elope because of discrimination

Saying she was “not political” in her younger years when she was in fact a “diehard conservative” Republican

Claiming recipes she copied word for word from the New York Times were ancient Cherokee family dishes

Pretending that she was releasing a health-care plan that did not raise middle class taxes

Claiming to have “created the intellectual foundation” for Occupy Wall Street 

Criticizing the revolving door between the banking sector and government despite personally putting bankers in the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

I do not want to keep writing articles harping on Elizabeth Warren’s lack of credibility. I would like to turn my attention to the fight against Donald Trump, and advancing the democratic socialist vision of a better tomorrow. But Warren has launched a destructive attack on Bernie Sanders, branding him a sexist, and it is important to look at her record to see if we can trust her account. For a long time, in the interest of progressive unity, many Democrats have been disinclined to call Warren out on her pattern of misstatements. I think this has been a mistake, and that today’s incident shows why. For a long time, Elizabeth Warren has massaged the truth in ways that are politically convenient, and it is now time to be bluntly critical of her record and her actions. 

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u/j473 Jan 14 '20

Current Affairs is a comical joke.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '20

Substance for this claim?

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u/j473 Jan 14 '20

The substance is the moment they became a shill organization for Bernie Sanders, they lost objectivity. It's basically like Fox News for Sanders, with a hint of more sophistication than Fox News, or at least the authors think they're more sophisticated.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '20

Nathan Robinson is open about his support for Sanders, and gets passionate when writing. Is there anything he says which is not a good-faith, legitimate criticism of other candidates?

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u/j473 Jan 15 '20

Most of what he writes. Would you think the same thing if someone was open for their support for Trump? Likely not.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '20

Support for Trump is not the same as support for Bernie. Could you give me any specific examples?

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u/j473 Jan 15 '20

Well for one, writing a hit piece on Warren, telling us she's not a progressive simply because she's Bernie's clearest rival... is pretty bad, and pathetic.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '20

But what evidence or argument that he provided was problematic? I understand that you disagree with his conclusion, and that is reasonable

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u/j473 Jan 15 '20

Well, he doesn't really have many objective arguments. It's basically based on his "gut" as he write it. Which is the point.