Bernie is showboating again.
He was invited. Is it showboating when youāre invited?
He arranged the invitation, and it didnāt come from the person in charge of inviting participants.
Margaret Archer, the president of the academy
Needs to check in with her bosses before she lobs personal insults at visiting dignitaries. She just made herself look like an asshole and completely contradicted the Church officials who did invite him.
Iām not a Sanders booster by any means, but I really donāt see where he did anything wrong here. He was invited to attend and he accepted the invitation. It is true that his attendance probably politicizes the event, but thatās not his fault, itās the fault, if any, of the person who invited him.
Does he really think any Catholic will like him more because he is going to the Vatican? The Pope is popular with many people but just the hint of telling American Catholics how to vote would not go over well at all. Another clueless move by Bernie and his advisors. This will not go over well at all.
the politics at the Vatican are as intense as anything going on in Congress. There is a real struggle between the new pope and the various officials installed by the previous conservative popes and accustomed to their way of doing things.
(Itās always that other guy you disagree with whoās the one playing politicsā¦)
Bernie said
āI am delighted to have been invited by the Vatican to a meeting on restoring social justice and environmental sustainability to the world economy,
The invitation was from the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, The Vatican press office later clarified that it did not issue the invitation, but that it came from the academy.
I didnāt see that. I was operating based on the article on TPM where I saw he was invited. Praps I should have dug a bit deeper.
It sounds as heās gotten caught in the middle of a spat within the organization, between the president (who is not a cleric) and the chancellor (who is).
I tend to side with the chancellor, simply because this is in fact the kind of stuff that Sanders has been talking and thinking about for the past 40-plus years.
As @answerfrog said, Bernie hasnāt has a good week. I was short on information in my initial post.
Gosh, maybe a lot of the states coming up have a lot of Catholic voters? Surely Sanders wouldnāt do anything that cynically political, would he?
Yes, but not necessarily by the official charged with doing the inviting according to this article. Iām guessing he wants to try to repair his āholier than thouā auraā¦
But going to one of the places that has super concentrated wealth, dubious investments, etc. to reattain that aura is itself problematic.
Frog, some NY Hispanics may be devout but the idea that they look to the Vatican for advice is probably not the case any more than white Catholics do. One of Bernieās advisors from Vermont probably told him that. There are very few Hispanics in the Green Mountain state.
Could help with the Latino vote, especially among the Latino poor.
But I think Sanders would be pleased to go and speak, votes or no votes. Poverty is something he feels very strongly about. Itās visceral with him, deep in his gut.
āHe arranged the invitation.ā
Hmmmā¦
The Sanders campaign told Bloomberg that Archerās description of Sandersā actions is ācategorically untrue.ā
I guess that part of the story doesnāt count.
God forbid Sanders attend a conference addressing the plight of the poor around the world!!
Seriously, do you people realize how cynical you sound???
Would you like Sanders better if he were receiving six-figure speaking fees talking to bankers?
Why is this woman blaming Sanders? And seriously, whereās her sense of decorum?
Is it a bad thing that Bernie Sanders is attending? She seems to think so. Is she so cynical about her own conference that she dismisses out of hand the possibility that a person might be interested in the conference based on its own merits? Does it offend her that the visibility of her conference might be elevated significantly by his presence?
Or is she just lashing out because she was left out of the loop with regard to this invitation? Evidently sheās not really āin chargeā of the entirety of the invitation process. Perhaps that rankles her?
Clinton supporters are whining again.