The simmering feud between the Democratic Party establishment and leftists who believe that the Democratic National Committee (DNC) has acted more like "Democrats Nominating Clinton" than a genuine political party presenting viable alternatives to Hillary Clinton, visibly erupted today.
This morning, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard resigned her position as Vice Chair at the DNC and immediately endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. Reuters jumped on the news quickly, and has a seven-paragraph story. The New York Times has also devoted a story to the matter. By contrast, the Associated Press posted a brief blurb in a running timeline at 9:55 this morning, and has reported nothing since, effectively burying the news so deep that almost no one will see it. Perhaps AP is awaiting word from either Team Clinton or the White House as to what they're going to be allowed to report.
Here's most of that Reuters story:
Congresswoman quits Democratic National Committee, endorses Bernie Sanders
Democratic National Committee Vice Chair Tulsi Gabbard resigned from her post on Sunday to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, following months of rising tensions within the group.
"I think it’s most important for us, as we look at our choices as to who our next commander in chief will be, is to recognize the necessity to have a commander in chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment," Gabbard, a U.S. representative for Hawaii, said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Gabbard, one of five vice chairs, and her committee colleagues have butted heads over a thin debate schedule in the months leading to Democratic voting contests for the party's nomination, with Gabbard calling for the group to add more debates to the calendar.
Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont, is competing with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination to run for president on Nov. 8. Critics have said the scheduling of the debates has favored Clinton, who is better known than Sanders and is favored to win the nominating contest.
Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz issued a statement accepting Gabbard's resignation, calling her a friend and praising the active-duty veteran for her service in the armed forces.
Wasserman Schultz has been accused of engineering a debate schedule so that their viewing audiences would be sparse — the better to protect the frontrunner.
The AP's deeply buried paragraphs read as follows:
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard says she's resigning the Democratic National Committee to support Bernie Sanders for president.
The Hawaii Democrat tells NBC's "Meet the Press" that she trusts Sanders to consider the consequences of any military action.
Even as she spoke in the live interview, Gabbard's name remained on the DNC web site as vice chair.
Of course, there's not a word about the conflict between Gabbard and Schultz — and we're apparently supposed to believe that the presence of Gabbard's name at the DNC web site on Sunday afternoon (still the case as of the time this post was written) is supposed to mean something. At most, it means that Democrats, who favor government growth at almost every opportunity, are moving at the speed of government.
Here is video of Ms. Gabbard's announcement on Meet the Press:
CHUCK TODD: Welcome back, we've spent much of the show talking about how divided the GOP has become, but there are also some fractures within the Democratic race and my next guest, Tulsi Gabbard, Congresswoman from Hawaii, Democratic National Committee Vice Chair, has been at odds with her boss, DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz for months over the Democratic presidential debate schedule.
Congresswoman, you're here because you have an announcement to make regarding your position at the DNC. Tell us.
REP. TULSI GABBARD: Well first of all, I am resigning from the DNC so that I can support Bernie Sanders for president, and I'd like to tell you why. As a veteran and as a soldier I've seen firsthand the true cost of war. I served in a medical unit during my first deployment where every single day I saw firsthand the very high human cost of that war. I see it in my friends who now a decade after we've come home are still struggling to get out of a black hole.
I think it's most important for us as we look at our choices as to who our next commander-in-chief will be is to recognize the necessity to have a commander-in-chief who has foresight, who exercises good judgment, who looks beyond the consequences. Who looks at the consequences of the actions they are willing to take before they take those actions so that we don't continue to find ourselves in these failures that have resulted in chaos in the Middle East and so much loss of life.
CHUCK TODD: But you know it was just a month ago, and this is what sort of got us curious. A month ago, you said you think the next commander-in-chief needs to have a "military mindset." You said this during an interview on Fox News. Does Senator Sanders have a military mindset?
REP. TULSI GABBARD: From what I've seen and from talking with him and from his record he does. And what that military mindset means is you go through an analysis process as you're looking at potential courses of action that you're gonna take and how and when we use our military power, and just as importantly when we don't use that military power.
That military mindset says you have foresight. You look at what are the results? What are the consequences of these actions? How will other actors in the area react to those actions? What will we then do? And you look and continue down the line so you know exactly what you're potentially getting yourself into before you make that decision that ends up costing us lives and treasure.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
