Washington Post Suddenly Discovers That Bernie Sanders Has a Long History of Defending Indefensibly Oppressive Communist Regimes

You don't say. You don't say.

The Democrats have been playing footsie with him for years, and he almost became their candidate four years ago. 60% of the party is very enthusiastic about socialism.

But you covered it up. Until now.

Turns out that the candidate that all the "True Cons" will wind up supporting, in order to defeat the allegedly "authoritarian" Trump, is quite the little authoritarian himself.

That won't make no matter. Every single thing they say is a lie.

Here are some excerpts. (It's one of the few WaPo articles that isn't paywalled -- I guess they really want to derail Sanders.)

[A] Fix review of more than 10 hours of Sanders appearances over the past three decades reveals how Sanders has often been quick to downplay abuses of authoritarian regimes, instead focusing on aspects and programs he admired. During his two presidential bids, Sanders has at times appeared to contradict or try to explain away his earlier views on authoritarian regimes, examples of which you can watch in the video above.

In 1985, Sanders praised Cuban dictator Fidel Castro for his education and health-care programs. In 1986, he recalled being "very excited" by Castro’s revolution. And after he returned from a trip to Cuba in 1989, the Rutland Daily Herald paraphrased Sanders as calling Cuba a "model of what a society could be" for Latin America.

At the time, Castro's human rights abuses had been documented in media reports and by Congress.

Asked during the 2016 presidential campaign about his past praise of Castro, Sanders said he was criticizing the United States for trying to invade Cuba. Weeks after the 2016 election, Sanders said he does not “praise” Castro. And asked again about his previous comments Sunday, Sanders told "60 Minutes" that "it's unfair to simply say everything is bad."

Returning from a trip to Nicaragua in 1985, Sanders downplayed reports of abuses by the Sandinista-led government, instead lauding the country’s democratic rights, civil liberties and food lines. In 1988, Sanders discussed the government’s media censorship by pointing to previous U.S. crackdowns on press freedoms during the Civil War and first and second world wars.

And of course he had to stick up for the Soviet Union, where he honeymooned with his communist wife in Petrograd:

...

Returning from a 1988 trip to the Soviet Union, where Sanders praised its investment in culture and mass transit, among other things, he told reporters he did not see "much deprivation" among Soviet citizens, despite reports of just that at the time.

posted by Ace at 12:00 PM

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