The big story in the Democratic nomination has been about Sanders questioning Clinton’s qualifications, but the press has been entirely unfair to Sanders. (1) It highlights his statement, but buries the fact that it was in response to Clinton’s detailed response to the same question making exactly the same claim in reverse; (2) It plays as if he’s claiming that she doesn’t have the right experience, when Sanders is speaking to her decision-making and banking & corporate ties, which speak just as clearly as experience when it comes to qualifications; and (3) it acts as if Sanders is dragging down the Democratic race into hard-hitting chaos like the GOP has been experiencing, as if Clinton is the one keeping clean when exactly the opposite is true.

None of these are accurate. Clinton was on “Morning Joe” and was asked if Sanders was qualified to be president. Clinton evaded saying outright that he wasn’t, but responded to the question with a litany of statements about exactly why she felt that Sanders was not qualified—the he is focused on a single issue of breaking up the banks, doesn’t understand the issues in general, doesn’t understand the law or how politics works, can’t deliver on his promises, and is weaker on economic domestic issues and on national security and foreign policy.

Hillary supporters claim that she didn’t actually say the words, “he isn’t qualified,” but that’s a complete sham. You can’t go on for several minutes explaining about how your opponent has no understanding of anything and claim that you said nothing about his qualifications. Sanders simply spoke more directly.

As to bringing the race down into the gutter? I am 99% sure that if you analyzed statements made by Clinton and by Sanders, you would find a great deal more trash talk coming from Hillary—that’s the way the race has run. Sanders almost always focuses like a laser beam on the issues, and has shown a clear propensity for *not* trash-talking the other candidates. In contrast, Clinton has always been perfectly willing to deliver hard-hitting gut punches on a regular basis.

See this story about Sanders’ talk with Charlie Rose, and you’ll get a *much* clearer picture of Sanders’ actual tone, even when focused only on the Clinton tangle.

Unfortunately, this only contributes to the bias which is so clearly tilted in Clinton’s favor. She could insult Sanders all day long, and the media would not take notice aside from challenging Sanders with the allegations (between asking him if he would encourage his supporters to vote for Hillary when he inevitably loses the race as they are always so sure he will), but if Sanders says anything negative about Hillary—well, that’s taking it into the gutter.
I have long felt that the media should, as a general service, publish all public statements by all candidates online so that the public can judge on tone and severity. Instead, we simply get fed whatever message the media wants to sell that particular day, and most people believe that it is an accurate representation of the real picture.